The design phase is the most important phase in the life of a component. It is during design that the characteristics of a component are decided. This is not only true for its specification, production cost, service life... but also for more subtle aspects such as ease of maintenance and intrinsic safety.

In this respect, from the narrow-scoped “design for purpose”, engineering, as a science, has progressed toward design for production, design for maintenance, design for safety...

Modern design is therefore a process the goal of which is a multi – objective optimisation often subject to conflicting constraints.

Unfortunately the safety aspect, being intangible or not immediately perceivable, is all too often neglected. As a consequence, even to date, the root causes of most failures can be traced back to incorrect or sub-standard decisions taken during the design stage.

In the present paper aspects of Safety Oriented Design are discussed and presented. The authors will also present and discuss real cases drawn from their experience as failure investigators and related to components such as Diesel engines, propulsion pods, propellers...