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So far PEimpact JH has created 71 blog entries.

Engineering Ingenuity of the Ancient Romans

While the Ancient Greeks are often lauded for their contributions to many fields such as poetry, philosophy, and mathematics (to name a few), the incredible engineering feats of the Ancient Romans were instrumental in their infrastructural and organizational efforts, and these ingenuities are employed by engineers even today ...

By |2023-03-20T12:54:35-06:00May 31st, 2021|Tuesday Tidbits|1 Comment

Collapse of the Willow Island Cooling Tower

In the 1970s, power companies began building many new coal-fired electrical power plants in the Ohio Valley to feed the growing industry in that region. These power plants were close to coal mines, so the electricity they generated was less expensive than nuclear or hydroelectric ...

By |2023-02-22T09:15:19-06:00May 27th, 2021|Friday Famous Failures|11 Comments

Digitally Signing and Sealing Your Plans

Digital Signatures are added with the aid of a third-party authentication program, which both ensures that the Professional Engineer is the one signing the document and prevents future repudiation. The authentication programs can vary, but they function by assigning an individual “certificate” that verifies identity ...

By |2022-09-15T08:18:49-06:00May 3rd, 2021|Tuesday Tidbits|4 Comments

Airplane Propeller-Induced Flutter

One night in September 1959, a Lockheed Electra L-188A turboprop aircraft with 28 passengers and 6 crew apparently disintegrated mid-flight over Buffalo, Texas. The Electra was new at the time, the first large turboprop airliner built by a United States aircraft company ...

By |2023-02-22T09:15:23-06:00April 29th, 2021|Friday Famous Failures|8 Comments

The DuPont Buffalo Plant Explosion

It should have been a day of routine maintenance on November 9, 2010 at the DuPont plant in North Tonawanda, New York. Tank 1, which normally contained 10,000-gallons of polyvinyl fluoride (PVF), a slurry used in manufactured countertops, had been cleaned and inspected in preparation for repairs ...

By |2023-02-22T09:15:26-06:00March 25th, 2021|Friday Famous Failures|7 Comments

The Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster

In 1981, the shuttle Columbia became the first to successfully reach space. From 1981 to 2003, Columbia carried dozens of astronauts on missions, spending a total of 300 days, 17 hours, 40 minutes, and 22 seconds in space. Columbia’s last flight was STS-107, a 16-day research mission ...

By |2023-03-06T08:55:33-06:00February 25th, 2021|Friday Famous Failures|5 Comments