That happened out here in the early ‘80’s. The Washington Public Power Supply System was going balls to the walls on constructing nuclear power plants. (http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5482)
Several West Coast companies the biggest being Familian, was caught doing the exact same thing faking certs on imported steel, pipe and valves and altering the look of the material to resemble domestic material. A couple of V.P.’s of Familian served time.
A small shop in Seattle Tsubota Steel & Pipe was caught painting, restamping product sold to the WPPSS contract buyers imported product Tsubota’s V.P. deemed having equivalent qualities as domestic steel and valves costing two thirds more. Tsubota would provide samples of material ordered by WPPSS to independent testing labs for certification and substitute the delivered order with counterfeit material. This was CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL FOR NUCLEAR REACTORS.
It was a widespread problem. Every other supplier in the area had either done something similar or had been asked to by a WPPSS contract buyer. People went to jail, long time companies failed, WPPSS became the largest muni-bond default in American history and nuclear power never became a reality in the Pacific Northwest. We actually had a female nuclear scientist as Governor at the time who would have been remembered as a visionary had the nuke plants came on line. However, she was a democrat and like anything else socialist government does, it quickly achieved FUBAR status.
Ah the good ol’ days... I was a steamfitter welder at plants 1,2, & 4 and we used to complain about the crappy welds on the prefabbed pipe all of the time. Of course our welds had to be perfect (100% x-ray) right next to a weld that had porosity, wires sticking through it, and blow holes, (basically name the defect and it was right there) and the QC/QA would do nothing about it.
As far as welding rebar, the Ironheads were certified CAD welders to splice rebar together. Basically a special coupling that is placed over the ends of both pieces and electrically charged to weld the two together. Lots of big sparks when they did that...
Overall good comment but the operating nuclear power reactor 11 miles from me might beg to differ.
In b-school, one of cases in a manufacturing class was about weld problems on thermal couples for GE aircraft engines.
Bottom line, provided by a classmate that worked at that particular plant when the Harvard type blew through to write the case, the union welders bid on work, and rework paid extra, ergo, it was to the welder's benefit to screw up the initial weld to get higher pay to fix it.
I thought the plant Hanneford ? near the tri-cities was nuclear.