Safety in Acoustic Emission Testing

摘要

Many accidents happen because of a constellation of causes coming together at the wrong place and the wrong time. Contributing causes can lie in the technology, in the inspector personally, in the organization and its management... even perhaps in the regulatory environment. The coinciding of causes is a matter of luck; this is why accidents are sometimes shrugged off as "unlucky". But the causes individually are identifiable and correctable. Thus, the risk of tomorrow's accident can be greatly reduced by addressing identifiable causes today. All credit is due to the many organizations and individuals who promote and practice safety. Unfortunately, not everybody is like that. The first attitude that comes up to oppose an effort to reduce unsafe practices is "We've always done it that way". This is closely followed by That's the way Joe showed us" and "We couldn't do it the other way because... . Behind these, you will soon find "we can't spend any money to do it the other way". This is the philosophy of "don't fix it till it breaks" - a good practical philosophy when the cost of the breakage is small; but unfortunately what breaks here might be a human being.