Factor of safety - Civil Engineering life learnings

 Factor of safety is very important in civil engineering, Just like in test cricket when opposition has been wrapped up for meagre runs and the batting side is thinking about how much runs will be enough to defend and not bat again. Some say 200 runs , some say 400 runs, some go and score 1000 runs. If you score 200 runs it may not be enough, 400 runs is a psychological barrier breached seldom and 1000 runs is a drawn test. However there are many factors like boling depth, variety, batting depth weather the bowl is swinging. May be 400 runs are enough but anything more is factor of safety you don't want to lose.

Similarly, in civil engineering the standardization of material, skillset of labours, loads are all variable. Based on studies there are are partial safety factors for soil it is 3, for concrete it is 1.5 and steel it is 1.15 and so on that means steel is highly reliable and soil is unreliable. Similarly in life also  suffer as we expect a higher factor of safety from people or organisation without analysing their  performance/ our expectation. So realistic expectations are necessary for cordial relations.

Also, in civil engineering there are safety factors for load like wind, earthquake, live load, etc and while we take combination of loads we make   an assumption that borth earthquake and hurricane don't occur simultaneously, the stress is also on behaviour of structure should be reliable and provide ample time for people to exit. Similarly in life also for individuals and organisations extreme loads come for example COVID -19 put such a pressure on health infrastructure. So just like there is summer after rainy season. so a reasonable approach is necessary to deal with extreme events as employed in civil engineering.