Brunel
Lecture Series on Complex Systems
Engineering Systems Division
Lecture:
The Columbia Tragedy: System-Level Issues for Engineering
by Sheila
Widnall
Member, Columbia Accident Investigation Board
Member, National Women's Hall of Fame
Institute Professor, Professor of Aeronautics, Astronautics,
and Engineering Systems, Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Click
here to view
lecture poster (.pdf).
Click here
to view MIT World video of this lecture.
About
the Lecture:
The
Columbia accident resulted from an organizational systems
failure that allowed the physical event to occur. Insulating
foam from the external tank impacted the shuttle, creating
a breech in the wing’s leading edge that allowed gases
at temperatures of some 5000 degrees F to enter the wing
and devastate its internal structure. The response of engineers
and program mangers while Columbia was in orbit raises important
issues for the education of engineers. It also raises questions
about engineers’ responsibility to treat system-level
issues with the same disciplinary expertise with which they
treat components.
On October
28, 2003, the CAIB released Volumes II - VI of its report.
Please click here
to access this and other CAIB information.
About
the Speaker:
Dr.
Widnall received her Sc.D. from MIT.
She
has served as Associate Provost, MIT, and as Secretary of
the Air Force. As Secretary of the Air Force, Dr. Widnall
was responsible for all affairs of the Department of the
Air Force including recruiting, organizing, training, administration,
logistical support, maintenance, and welfare of personnel.
During this time, the Air Force issued its long range vision
statement: Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century
Air Force, which defined the path from the air and space
force of today to the space and air force of the next century.
Dr. Widnall was also responsible for research and development
and other activities prescribed by the President or the
Secretary of Defense. She co-chaired the Department of Defense
Task Force on Sexual Harassment and Discrimination. She
later stepped down to resume teaching.
Since
returning to MIT, she has been active in the Lean Aerospace
Initiative, with special emphasis on the space and policy
focus teams. Her research activities in fluid dynamics have
included the following: boundary layer stability, unsteady
hydrodynamic loads on fully wetted and supercavitating hydrofoils
of finite span, unsteady lifting-surface theory, unsteady
air forces on oscillating cylinders in subsonic and supersonic
flow, unsteady leading-edge vortex separation from slender
delta wings, tip-vortex aerodynamics, helicopter noise,
aerodynamics of high-speed ground transportation vehicles,
vortex stability, aircraft-wake studies, turbulence, and
transition. Her teaching activities have included undergraduate
dynamics and aerodynamics, graduate level aerodynamics of
wings and bodies, aeroelasticity, acoustics and aerodynamic
noise, and aerospace vehicle vibration. She was a member
of the Columbia accident investigation board and she was
inducted into the Women's
Hall of Fame in 2003.
About
the Series:
THE
BRUNEL LECTURE SERIES ON COMPLEX SYSTEMS was made
possible by funds assembled and underwritten by Frank P.
Davidson, convener of the Channel Tunnel Study Group (1957).
It was this group's design, accomplished by agreement with
Bechtel Corporation, Brown & Root, Inc. and Morrison-Knudsen
Company, Inc. in 1959, that formed the basis of the subsea
railway link now in service between England and France.
Mr.
Davidson is a retired Senior Research Associate at MIT.
From 1970-1996, he was Chairman of the System Dynamics Steering
Committee, Sloan School of Management, and Coordinator of
the Macro-Engineering Research Group at MIT's School of
Engineering. He co-edited, with C. Lawrence Meador, Macro-Engineering:
Global Infrastructure Solutions, subtitled Massachusetts
Institute of Technology Brunel Lectures 1983-1992. With
Ernst G. Frankel and C. Lawrence Maedor, he co-edited Macro-Engineering,
subtitled MIT Brunel Lectures on Global Infrastructure.
These volumes, published by Ellis Horwood and Horwood Publishing
Limited in 1992 and 1997, respectively, appeared in Chichester,
England, as did Macro-Problems and World Projects, subtitled
Essays in Honor of Frank Davidson, which appeared
in 1998, on the occasion of Mr. Davidsons retirement and
80th birthday. The latter volume was edited by MIT Professor
Emeritus Ernst G. Frankel and by Uwe Kitzinger, CBE, former
president of Templeton College, Oxford, and now a Visiting
Scholar at Harvard.
Brunel
Lectures 2001 – Present:
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by Shai Agassi
Founder and CEO, Better Place
Process
Improvement in the Rarified Environment of Academic Medicine
(2007)
by Paul F. Levy
President and Chief Executive Officer of Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center
Educating
Engineers for 2020 and Beyond (2006)
by
Dr. Charles M. Vest
President Emeritus and Professor of Mechanical Engineering
The
21st Century is about Engineering, Systems, and Society
(2005)
by Dr. A. Richard Newton
Dean of the College of Engineering at University of California
at Berkeley; Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering; Professor
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Engineering
Engineering Systems (2004)
by Thomas L. Magnanti
Institute Professor
Dean, MIT School of Engineering
The
Columbia Tragedy: System-Level Issues for Engineering
(2003)
by Sheila Widnall
Member, Columbia Accident Investigation Board
Member, National Women's Hall of Fame
Institute Professor, Professor of Aeronautics, Astronautics,
and Engineering Systems, Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Living
with Catastrophic Terrorism: Can Science and Technology
Make the U.S. Safer? (2002)
by Lewis M. Branscomb
Co-chair, Committee on Science and Technology for Countering
Terrorism, National Research Council and Professor Emeritus,
Public Policy and Corporate Management, John F. Kennedy
School of Government, Harvard University
Simple
Systems and Other Myths (2001)
by Norman R. Augustine
Former President, CEO, and Chairman and Current Chairman,
Executive Committee, Lockheed Martin Corporation
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