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SUMMARY:Hillsborough: a long festering scar on the conscience of the natio
 n Technical and societal aspects of the disaster - Roderick A Smith\,  Imp
 erial College London and Queens’ College Cambridge
DTSTART:20181012T140000Z
DTEND:20181012T150000Z
UID:TALK110899@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Karen Mitchell
DESCRIPTION:This lecture will begin by briefly describing the events which
  led to the disaster at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield on 15 April 
 1989 in which 96 people lost their lives. It will continue by describing s
 ome of the work carried out by the Health and Safety Executive in investig
 ating these events. The author was seconded the HSE team by the University
  of Sheffield where he was then the Head of Mechanical Engineering. \n\nTh
 e individual aspects investigated include the examination and testing of c
 rush barriers\, collapse load calculations\, development of a model to pre
 dict crowd pressures and estimation of the number of spectators entering t
 he critical areas of the ground and the operation of the entry turnstiles.
 \n\nThe years since the disaster have seen many inquiries of various kinds
 \, all focussed on the performance of various authorities\, particularly S
 outh Yorkshire Police\, in the aftermath of the disaster. The presentation
  will conclude by redressing the balance by discussing the role played in 
 the disaster by the performance and technical failings of the various safe
 ty experts and officials who were responsible for erroneously granting the
  ground a safety certificate in the years leading up to the disaster. \n\n
 Professor Roderick Smith\, ScD\, FREng.\, is currently Emeritus Professor 
 at Imperial College London and Chair of the Future Railway Research Centre
 . He is an Infrastructure Commissioner for Wales and was previously Chief 
 Scientific Advisor for the Department for Transport. \nHe is a visiting Pr
 ofessor at the University of Oxford and an Academician of CRRC China and a
  Past President of the institution of Mechanical Engineers. \nHe was previ
 ously a lecturer in the Cambridge University Engineering Department (1980-
 88) and Professor of Mechanical and Process Engineering\, University of Sh
 effield (1988-2000)\, including a period as Head of Department (1992-95). 
 \nHe was Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial Coll
 ege\n(2000-2005) Professor Smith has undertaken consultancy work for Tech 
 Director\, British Steel plc (1987-90)\, was involved in crowd safety rese
 arch assisting the Health and Safety Executive with investigations into th
 e Hillsborough disaster\, and has worked for the Board of British Rail\n(1
 992-96) and as an expert witness in many legal cases. \nHe recently acted 
 as an external assessor of the Shift2Rail programme for the EU.\nHe has al
 so worked in Japan with Universities\, Japanese railway organizations and 
 manufacturers. \nHe has published widely and is frequently invited to addr
 ess international meetings and conferences for many years he has champione
 d the building of a high speed rail system in the UK.\n
LOCATION: Cambridge University Engineering Department\, LT6
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