RE: RE: OT: Three-Mile Island Events

From: <Steve>
Date: Sat Apr 03 2004 - 04:31:00 EST

Hi Paul
in my opinion TMI was a disaster - a management disaster if we are looking at the cause.
Faulty instrumentation is, regrettably, a fact of life. It appears that the operators decided instrumentation was faulty, but did not know or had forgotten how to proceed in such an event. This means they were improperly trained or selected. Ensuring effective training and selection are management functions.

Cheers

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Bowers [mailto:pbowers@pipingdesign.com] Sent: Saturday, April 03, 2004 3:07 PM
To: PipingDesign@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [PipingDesign] RE: OT: Three-Mile Island Events

One of the Slashdot comments mentioned that digital gauges malfunctioned, showing 0000 (interpreted as a computer malfunction) instead of what actually was happening. Supposedly, an analog gauge would have been reading "over the top" and would have alerted the operators. Assuming they were not Homer Simpson clones, of course.

Overall, though, in my opinion, TMI was not a "disaster" unless PR and public opinion is factored into the equation. And politics.

Also, one has to remember that in those days, the word, "nuclear" was more readily associated with the popular "stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye" mantra as we all awaited imminent vapourization from Soviet missiles. Now we have something else to worry about.

Ducking and covering,

Paul

From: "Davis McConnico"

> Great book on this subject:
>
> Inviting Disaster: Lessons From the Edge of Technology by James R.
Chiles

> From: Bruce Bullough

> It amazes me that educated people continue to think that "engineers"
> should be able to design and install any system (simple or complex)
to
> be completely fail-proof. Everything becomes obvious in hind-site.
>
> I spent part of 7 years working on TMI cleanup. I got to know the
> situation fairly well. I even interviewed for a maintenance
supervisor
> job at a sister plant. There were plenty of problems, some are
design
> and engineering related, but the issue of corporate culture
(management)
> and regulatory issues (again, management) were the biggest factors.
I
> suppose we can all point fingers and live in fear, and we as
designers
> and engineers need to take full advantage of peer review and codes
to do
> our best to prevent disaster, but they will continue to happen -
> especially those that are multiple event causes.

> From: Paul Bowers [mailto:pbowers@pipingdesign.com]
>
> Interesting discussion about the build-up to the shutdown:
>
>

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=101979&cid=8695178&threshold=-1&mode
> =nested&commentsort=0
>
> or
>
> http://makeashorterlink.com/?I10125AE7

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