Posted on 12/15/2007 3:17:25 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/12/navy_faulty_shipwelds_071214w/
Well, they met their schedule. That’s what’s important isn’t it?
38 posted on 12/15/2007 7:32:46 PM PST by Mariner
Finally someone with knowledge.WTF?
Yes, all US subs are steel and limited to a cruising depth of about 1500ft. Even the newest Seawolf.
Also why parachute riggers jump with randomly selected chutes they packed.
That was the USS San Francisco. The problem is that the damage was not limited to the front section of the boat. The impact caused buckling along the entire hull, and the boat will probably be scrapped.
Shhh! Disinformatsiya.
Ixnay on the alkingtay.
That used to be my bread and butter. Of course if the metal aint right the x-rays and other tests can still look good. And a Telley/Brinell hardness test my not be legal. I hear that now days they have NDT ways of testing the metalurgy.
Apparently, the Navy has decided to take the bow off the USS Honolulu and weld it onto the San Francisco, even though the San Francisco is four years older than the Honolulu. Their reasoning behind this is that the San Francisco had just undergone a $170-million nuclear refueling, while the Honolulu has not. The estimated cost of repairing the San Francisco is currently sitting at $79-million.
That being said, you couldn't pay me enough money to get on the San Francisco after she rejoins the fleet, sometime in late 2008 or early 2009.
As an aside, one of my roommates from college interned with GD... was a mech. engineer. One of his tasks was to inspect welds on the electric boat he was assigned. Would tell me that at certain times of the day they had to cover up portions of the yard because they knew when the Ruskie’s satellites were passing over.
They did the same thing with a couple of battleships back in 1956. The Wisconsin shattered her bow in a collision with the destroyer-escort Eaton, so the Navy took the bow from the incomplete Kentucky and welded it onto the Wisconsin. A new bow was constructed for the Kentucky, as they were considering turning her into a massive missile ship, but they ended up scrapping her two years later.
Wisconsin after collision with Eaton.
There was an incident on new construction at EB NL that related a tale of a female inspector finding missing welds in the bow of a sub under construction...this was after the USS THRESHER (SSN593) sinking.
It is documented in a book called “Running Critical” by Tyler.
I couldn’t put it down, it ticked me off so bad...
I was just chatting but you, Sir, can take the condom off your head now.
I've just been reading and re-reading the stories available on this issue and it's tough to tell exactly what we have (writers have a terrible time with accurately reporting anything technical!) but.... there appear to have been "faulty" welds actually found... so we've got more than "just" the administrative non-conformance because there are real welds with something found wrong with them. What I can't tell is whether the "faulty" welds had the wrong filler material in them or if it was something else completely unrelated to the issue of carrying multiple filler materials with them at once.
From my own experience (former pipefitter, pipe welder and certified inspector once upon a time) I can only say that it was incredibly stupid to have EVER allowed any filler material to be checked out other than the material needed for the specific work at hand. Just setting yourself up for this situation and as soon as the first weldor violates their integrity and training the entire program is called into question on an issue very difficult to determine the scope for.
Could be very expensive and time consuming depending on the details...
At EB under P Takos Veryloutus... Ohio had bad metal in her condensers and ER, 698, 699, 700 had bad welds fwd compartment welds, and missing deckplate and foundation welds (that had been signed off by both the welder and the inspectors!) on the main fwd isolation sounds mounts.
Found the 698 failures just before sea trials.
Ping.
My reference was an ineffective expression of admiration for the Soviet Alpha class which was composed of Titanium alloy and had a crush depth more than twice that of any other military submarine.
Hey, don't get a bustle.
You felt the need to "chat", remember?
Swell. I suppose it wasn’t such a brilliant idea to let a communist country build our WAR EQUIPMENT after all, now was it elPresidente?
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