Forensic Engineering and the Standard of Care

Engineers engaged in forensic investigations have unique roles and responsibilities that differ from those of design engineers, and must adhere to a distinct standard of care that is too seldom discussed, considered, or understood. This paper explores the forensic engineering standard of care question through the case study of a portable water storage tank failure. The incident precipitated the production of no fewer than ten engineering reports asserting various distributions of blame on the manufacturer, owner, installer, and designer, a number of which ultimately called into question the structural design of an entire line of production equipment. WJE reviewed these volumes of work, and finding them inconclusive, performed independent non-linear finite element analyses of the design, fabricated representative connection test specimens, and subjected them to high-cycle fatigue and strength testing to evaluate service life performance. Our results and the actual in-service performance demonstrated that the design met or exceeded relevant standards and performance requirements, despite voluminous, corroborating, and ostensibly sophisticated allegations to the contrary. We believe that such misrepresentations of reality are far too common to the forensic engineering field and draw a series of lessons from our experience on what the standard of care means to engineers who find themselves opining on another’s work.