These brief cases present situations that raise ethical questions common in engineering practice and research. The cases were rewritten to make them more suitable for group and class discussion. Each of the discussion cases has a link to the original NSPE case. Cases are grouped into five categories.
Some cases appear in more than one category.
Two cases of bridge collapses maintained by Carleton University that illustrate the role of risk and failure in engineering work. The Quebec Bridge case collapsed twice during construction, in 1907 and in 1916. It has the longest span of any cantilever bridge in the world. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge case. One of the most famously documented failures, this bridge collapsed due to wind-induced vibrations a few months after completion in 1940.