A: FROM MENTOR MOLLY WILLIAMS IN MI
You can bet there are big liability issues. That's why engineers go through
a rigorous education and licensing process to ensure that they have the
skills to design safely. Normally, there will also be colleagues or other
reviewers who re-check and certify designs to ensure compliance with safety
standards. There have been some famous structural collapses in the past,
and the investigations have focused on whether the structures were properly
designed to withstand the expected loading conditions. When the design
engineer is found to be at fault, he/she will be punished with loss of
license, large fines, and even prison. However, when the cause of the
failure is due to unforseen conditions, the engineer is not at fault. Here
are a couple of examples:
The Twin Towers collapsed during the 9-11 attack. It was not reasonable to
expect those buildings to be designed to tolerate the impact of a fully
fueled large aircraft, so the engineers were not liable for the collapse.
However, the attachment of the floors to the vertical structure contributed
to the successive collapse of each floor onto the ones below, probably
making the failure more catastrophic than it might have been. Now that the
structural engineering community has this new information, large building
designs will be safer in the future.
The Hyatt Hotel walkway collapse in Kansas City was found to be due to
incorrect assembly of the walkway. The structure had been safely designed,
but it was not built that way. Liability was assigned to the contractor who
implemented the design.