Ethical issues in engineering design - 3TU.Centre for Ethics and ...

Ethical issues in engineering design
design leader thought / hoped that the Rijkswaterstaat would give them
comments and advice on misuse. The question remains whether the architect
would accept a gate or some other measure to keep people off the arch. This
might become a problem later on in the design process.
Large ships and containerships use the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal to go southeast
to Tiel and further on to Germany. Large ships need a lot of time to turn corners,
to stop and avoid a collision with another ship. It is therefore important that
captains have a good enough line of sight to see other ships further up or down a
river or canal. At the location for the bridge the canal is not completely straight;
there is a small curve. Locating the columns of the bridge directly on the bank of
the canal will obscure a ship’s captain’s line of sight. The Rijkswaterstaat would
not allow this. The columns will therefore be located 10 meters inland. This
positioning of the columns had another advantage, if the columns are placed 10
m inland there is no requirement to design the bridge in such a way that it can
withstand a collision of a ship into one of its columns.
Lighting for the road on the bridge should be done in such a way that it does
not blind captains on the bridges of ships passing underneath. To aid ship
navigation radar is also used. A bridge will disturb the radar profile. There are
rules for radar disturbance. The Rijkswaterstaat will check whether or not the
design causes too much radar disturbance. The Rijkswaterstaat recommends
that surfaces perpendicular to the canal have an inclination of more than 5 to 10°
to avoid radar disturbance. The arches incline 15° to the inside so this
recommendation is met for the IJburg bridge arches. The beams under the sides
of the road deck also have an inclination of 15°. The beam that is located under
the middle of the road deck is straight and should, according to the
Rijkswaterstaat be finished with bevelled edges.
The engineers considered all the mentioned aspects to be important but during
the case-study design process when using the term “safety” they usually referred
only to safety in use. Safety during construction is called health and safety.
6.3.3 Sustainability
Some of the engineers mentioned in their interviews that the estate and the
bridge would be built in a former nature park. They thought that the
environment and especially building in a nature park was an ethically relevant
issue. The decision to develop an estate in a nature park was taken by the
Amsterdam city council. This was an important ethical issue but not one that the
engineers could really influence. The Amsterdam city council held a referendum
in 1997 to ask the Amsterdam community whether or not they agreed with the
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