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

Piping and equipment
place a new vessel within the installation without compromising minimum safety
distances. Safety distances are not only defined for vessels containing certain
dangerous chemicals and the boundaries of the chemical plant, safety distances
are also specified for distances between pipes and vessels and between different
vessels. A vessel under pressure might explode, if such an event occurs it should
not lead to additional problems. Other vessels should be placed at such a distance
that they are not affected by such an explosion.
Inconsistencies between codes and legislation are less prone to arise than
inconsistencies between customer requirements and codes and regulation.
Legislation and regulation are mostly goal based and codes usually apply to
hardware providing calculation rules that should lead to the performance levels
required by legislation and regulation. Therefore inconsistencies are not really an
issue. It can however, occur that new processes or materials have yet to be
codified and are therefore not automatically legal. In such cases it is sometimes
allowed to use those new processes or materials provided that a Notified Body has
explicitly allowed their use. A new material or process might be safer than those
specified in existing codes in certain instances. From a moral point of view it is
good to use new materials or processes if this enhances the safety of an
installation and has no other downsides e.g. with regard to sustainability. 5 From a
legal point of view special permission has to be obtained to be allowed to use new
materials or processes. Duplex steel was, for example, not included in the Dutch
code (Regels), the Stoomwezen however allowed the use of duplex steel in certain
installations.
The interviewed engineers have indicated that the codes for (chemical)
installations are based on years of experience in the design of pipes etc, and that
they do not put these codes aside easily. If there are situations in which the code
is difficult to apply, an engineer will contact the Notified Body about what to do.
In the end, the decision as to whether a design is indeed safe enough is made by
a Notified Body such as the Stoomwezen. If a design is approved the product will
have the CE mark.
Another important issue in the final stages of the design process is the question
of whether an installation, as drawn with a computer can be actually built. It is
sometimes easier to leave the difficult details out of the drawings. These details
then have to be decided on site, during the actual construction of the installation,
where a piping designer from the engineering company must be present. A
question about responsibility can be discerned here. Are the engineers
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5 Whether or not it is morally required to use new materials or processes if this enhances safety
depends also on other issues like amongst other things the costs and the environmental impact
of the new process or material.
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