Experts’ Corner

Design is a key activity in ensuring the on-going safety of hazardous engineering infrastructure. Construction flaws and operational errors have been highlighted as causal factors in many disasters but getting the design right in the first place is also fundamental for avoiding accidents as we see across multiple domains including built environment (e.g. Grenfell Tower), aviation (e.g. Boeing 737 MAX), space exploration (e.g. Challenger) and nuclear (e.g. Chernobyl).