Print this page Ethical Issues from the St. Francis Dam Failure
J. Paul Guyer, P.E., R.A., Fellow ASCE, Fellow AEI
Course Outline
1. INTRODUCTION
2. WHAT HAPPENED
3. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT
4. THE HUMAN FACTORS
5. ETHICAL ISSUES
6. LESSONS LEARNED
This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.
Learning Objective
At the conclusion of this course, the student will:
- Learn about the history of the project and the economic and political issues that shaped its development;
- Learn about the dam’s relation to the controversial Los Angeles Aqueduct;
- Learn about the well known public agency manager who controlled the project;
- Learn about the indications of trouble that were inspected before the failure but ignored;
- Learn about the dam break flows and velocities that resulted from the collapse;
- Learn about soil conditions at the site that should have been investigated and accommodated in the design;
- Learn about the dam height increases during construction that were not properly accommodated in the design;
- Learn about the ethical issues that were raised by the failure of the dam;
- Learn about the public agency manager’s engineering qualifications that raised ethical questions; and
- Learn about the importance of professional training in avoiding similar incidents in the future.
Intended Audience
This course is intended for engineers, architects and other design and construction professionals wanting to learn about the ethical issues that were raised by the failure of the St. Francis Dam, and lessons that have been learned from the incident. Although this was a civil engineering incident, the ethical issues and lessons apply to all engineering disciplines.
Benefit for Attendee
This course will give engineers and others an ethical framework within which to address many complex engineering projects that challenge the limits of engineering theoretical knowledge and experience.
Course Introduction
This is a discussion of issues in ethics in a civil engineering project, but it has application in all engineering disciplines and fields of practice.
About Course Author
Paul Guyer is a registered mechanical engineer, civil engineer, fire protection engineer and architect with over 35 years experience in the design of buildings and related infrastructure. For an additional 9 years he was a senior-level advisor to the California Legislature on infrastructure and capital outlay issues. He has designed and supervised the design of hundreds of construction projects requiring the preparation of detailed working drawings and specifications for federal, state and local public agencies and private companies. He is a graduate of Stanford University and has held numerous national, state and local positions with the American Society of Civil Engineers and National Society of Professional Engineers.
Course Content
The course content is contained in the following PDF file:
Ethical Issues from the St. Francis Dam Failure
Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.
Course Summary
This course will give engineers and others an insight into the lessons that can be learned from failure of the St. Francis Dam in 1928 in southern California.
Quiz
Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.
DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.
