Professional Ethics in Engineering Unit - IV

GE1301- PROFESSIONAL ETHICS & HUMAN VALUES

Question Bank

UNIT – IV

1. Define Risk?

A risk is the potential that something unwanted and harmful may occur.

Risk = Probability X Consequences.

2. Define a Disaster?

A DISASTER = A seriously disruptive event + A state of unprepared ness.

3. Give the criteria which helps to ensure a safety design?

The minimum requirement is that a design must comply with the applicable laws.

An acceptable design must meet the standard of “accepted engineering practice.”

Alternative designs that are potentially safer must be explored.

Engineer must attempt to foresee potential misuses of the product by the consumerand must
design to avoid these problems.

Once the product is designed, both the prototypes and finished devices must be rigorously
tested.

4. What are the factors for safety and risk?

Voluntary and Involuntary risk

Short-term and Long-term risk

Expected probability

Reversible effects

Handled by Mr. V.Vasanth, MBA., Ph.D., Sri Vidya College of Engineering and Technology
Professional Ethics in Engineering Unit - IV

Threshold levels to risk

Delayed or Immediate risk etc

5. What are the drawbacks in the definition of Lawrence?

Underestimation of risks

Overestimation of risks

5. Give the categories of Risk?

Low consequence, Low probability (which can be ignored)

Low consequence, High probability

High consequence, Low probability

High consequence, High probability

6. What are the factors that affect Risk Acceptability?

Voluntarism and control

Effect of information on risk assessment

Job related pressures

Magnitude and proximity of the people facing risk

7. What is the knowledge required to assess the risk?

Data in design

Uncertainties in design

Testing for safety

Analytical testing

Handled by Mr. V.Vasanth, MBA., Ph.D., Sri Vidya College of Engineering and Technology
Professional Ethics in Engineering Unit - IV

Risk-benefit analysis

8. What are the analytical methods?

o Scenario analysis

o Failure modes & effect analysis

o Fault tree analysis

o Event tree analysis etc.

9. What are the three conditions referred as safe exit?

Assure when a product fails it will fail safely.

Assure that the product can be abandoned safely.

Assure that the user can safely escape the product.

10. How will an engineer assess the safety?

The risks connected to a project or product must be identified. The purposes of the project or
product must be identified and ranked in importance. Costs of reducing risks must be estimated.
The costs must be weighed against both organizational goals and degrees of acceptability of
risks to clients and the public. The project or product must be tested and then either carried out
or manufactured.

11. What are the reasons for Risk-Benefit Analysis?

i. Risk-benefit analysis is concerned with the advisability of undertaking a project.

ii. It helps in deciding which design has greater advantages.

iii. It assists the engineers to identify a particular design scores higher with that of the another
one.

Handled by Mr. V.Vasanth, MBA., Ph.D., Sri Vidya College of Engineering and Technology
Professional Ethics in Engineering Unit - IV

12. Are the engineers responsible to educate the public for safe operation of the equipment?

How?

Yes, as per the engineers are concerned with they should have their duty as to protect

for the safety and well being of the general public. Analyzingthe risk and safety aspects of

their designs can do this.

13. Define Safety?

In the definition stated by William W. Lawrence safety is defined, as a thing is safe if its risks
are acceptable. A thing is safe with respect to a given person or group, at a given time, if its risk
is fully known, if those risks would be judged acceptable, in light of settled value principles. In
the view of objective, safety is a matter of how people would find risks acceptable or
unacceptable.

14. What is the definition of risks?

A risk is the potential that something unwanted and harmful may occur. Risk is the possibility of
suffering harm or loss. It is also defined as the probability of a specified level of hazardous
consequences, being realized. Hence Risk (R) is the product of Probability (P) and
consequence(C) (i.e)

R=P*C

15. Discuss the concept of Safety.

Engineering products are designed and manufactured with the aim of serving the public safely
and without any risk. In spite of careful design and giving allowance for any unforeseen failures,
our machines and control systems malfunction because of unexpected circumstances. Sometimes
they fail and cause accidents. As a result “safety” is not there and the “risk” becomes
inevitable.Nuclear Power Plant accidents at Three Miles Island and Chernobyl tell us about the
complexity in engineering systems and the need for safe exits.

Handled by Mr. V.Vasanth, MBA., Ph.D., Sri Vidya College of Engineering and Technology
Professional Ethics in Engineering Unit - IV

The Concept of Safety

Absolute safety is neither attainable nor affordable. Yet for our discussion, let us discuss what
we mean by “safety”.“Safety” means the various risks a person judges to be acceptable.
According to William W. Lawrence, “A thing is safe, if its risks are judged to be acceptable”.

16. Discuss the concept of Risk.

A risk is a thing if it exposes us to unacceptable danger or hazard. A risk is the potential that
something unwanted and harmful may occur. We take a risk when we undertake something or
use a product that is unsafe.

Risk, like harm covers many different types of unwanted happenings. In technology, it includes
dangers of bodily harm, of economic loss, or of environmental degradation. These are caused by
delayed job completion, faulty products or systems or environmentally harmful solutions to
technological problems. Natural hazards continued to threaten human population. Floods, storms,
heavy snowfall, earthquakes affected our population and cause a greater damage to the
technological networks for water, energy and food. Here a word should be said about disasters. A
disaster takes place when a serious accident happens with a state of unpreparedness. Titanic
collision with an iceberg happened to be a disaster because emergency preparedness were
inadequate. There were only a few life boats. The warning about iceberg was not heeded. The
severity of the risk is judged by its nature and possible consequences.

17. Explain the briefly about assessment of safety and risk

Any improvement in making a product safe involves an increase in the cost of production. A
product involves primary cost (Production) and secondary cost, both are taken into consideration
in calculating the total cost. The secondary costs are warranty expenses, loss of customer
goodwill and loss of even customers and so on. Therefore, it is very important for the
manufacturer and the users to have some understanding to know about the risks connected with
any product and know how much it will cost to reduce those risks.

Handled by Mr. V.Vasanth, MBA., Ph.D., Sri Vidya College of Engineering and Technology
Professional Ethics in Engineering Unit - IV

P - Primary cost of products, including cost of safety measures involved.

S - Secondary costs including warranty, loss of customer goodwill

T - Total cost + P + S

Minimum total cost occurs at M.

H - Highest acceptable risk may fall below risk at least cost M.

H - H and its higher costs must be selected as design or operating cost.

18. Explain the concept of Risk-Benefit Analysis.

Many large projects, especially public works are undertaken based on risk-benefit analysis.

The following are the questions to be answered:

i) Is the product worth risks connected with its use?

19. Discuss various method of reducing risks.

The engineer is faced with a difficult task of designing and manufacturing safe products. They
have to give a fair accounting of benefits and risks for those products. They have to meet
production schedule and help his or her company to maintain profits all the time. Of these
objectives, the product safety is to be given top priority.

20. Explain with examples the methods of improved safety.

1. The “magnetic door catch” introduced on refrigerators. This prevents death by suffocation of
children trapped in them. The catch provided to the door makes possible, door to be opened from
the inside without major effort. This is also cheaper compared to old type of latches.

Handled by Mr. V.Vasanth, MBA., Ph.D., Sri Vidya College of Engineering and Technology
Professional Ethics in Engineering Unit - IV

2. The “Dead man-handle” used by the engineer (engine-driver) to control train’s speed. The
train is accelerated only as long as some pressure is applied on the handle. If the engine driver
reduces the pressure on the handle, the speed of the train also comes down. When the pressure is
zero, the train automatically stops.

3. A car “safety belt” is a simple attachment on the door ensures that the belt automatically goes
into the position whenever one enters the car.

21. Explain the different types of employers authority that are to be respected by the
Engineers.

1. Institutional Authority. 2. Expert Authority. 3. Power Authority

22. Discuss the concept of Collective Bargaining.

Employees (workers) form an association, called “union”, in order to protect their rights. Union,
as a faithful agent of employees, is to safeguard their interests and rights. When the management
refuses to fulfill their legitimate rights, employees resort to strike. At this stage, the
representative from both sides (employer and employee), meet to discuss the various issues.
They ultimately reach a compromising solution, acceptable to both sides. This is known as
“Collective Bargaining”.

Handled by Mr. V.Vasanth, MBA., Ph.D., Sri Vidya College of Engineering and Technology