Posted on 12/25/2019 3:55:16 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
“Govt. contract, sounds like he was trying to save the govt. money.....”
Maybe, maybe not. We have a joke about some materials specified on government drawings. We call it “un-obtainium”.
This is especially true when your making parts to drawings with old dates on them... spare parts if you will. Some alloys haven’t been made in decades. Some process standards cited are way obsolete. But the proper thing to do is to file for an exception.
SABOTAGE!!!!
Exactly right.
“It is sad that NASA seems to have lower standards than the Boeing or Airbus who have kept inferior materials out of their production pipelines with proper oversight, difficult qualification process and regular testing.”
Uh, did I miss something? NASA had requirements and the guy falsified his certifications. Nothing in the article suggests that NASA has lowered their standards. In fact, NASA is the one who would set the high standards to begin with.
Nope, he was trying to save his company money, not the government.
Sure we can provide traceability and testing certificates. What you want it to say? Been right there. Fasteners are one of the worst areas for compliance and catastrophic failure, sometimes latent. “Stainless” steels in harsh applications are another area for dangerous counterfits. Again, latent failures from things like sulfide stress cracking with induced currents in subsea applications.
You likee nice “Crosby” embossing on our lousy cast steel shackles and other lifting devices? The chinee must use different stuff in their construction than what they sell us or their stuff would be falling apart before their eyes.
You forgot that hog Mega McCain on the Piew.
“stainless steel tubing to carry rocket fuel”
Few details in this article, but based on what is presented here are a few observations:
1. Yes this is a BIG DEAL.
2. “tubing” implies small lines like 1/2 inch or less. If it were stainless steel “Pipe” I would say it is larger lines like 1 to 2 inches or larger.
3. Small fuel lines like this are used to carry hypergolic fuels. These fuels are EXTREMELY corrosive and EXTREMELY reactive. Defects or impurities in fuel lines can be catastrophic. Like loss of vehicle explosion catastrophic.
Chinese steel is crap. I have to drill a lot of sheet steel, and the chinese stuff often has tiny Crystal’s of hard steel in the mix from crappy recycling. Burns up the drill screws
Providing false documents to a FISA Court = no penalty if you are a Democrat.
We _get_ it.
Sometime see the movie All MY Sons with Burt Lancaster and Edward G Robinson. Its based on a true story about Curtiss Wright inspectors being bribed to speed up production on aircraft parts during WW2 and to sign off on compliance sheets when it wasn’t there. Resulted in many needless airman deaths and Sen. Harry Truman raising hell with defense contractors, rightly so.
We learned about Chinese steel quick in the oil field.
*ping*
Two satellite mission failures attributed to faked materials.
Best you’ll get with fasteners is a CoC (”Certificate of Compliance” for the uninitiated). Basically the seller says “Yep! That’s a (fill-in the blank). Means nothing, really.
I recently had a customer that laid off some machining to our shop ask for a heat number for some fasteners that were included on the job. Thought they knew better than to ask since they didn’t require it up-front. They got only a CofC statement.
It is always follow the money.
Best I could do was to buy the material with heat certificates and proof testing, bar stock, keep custody of it, witness the receipt and follow the manufacture of bolts and nuts all the way through with my own eyes on it. It was the measure that had to be taken after a multi tens of million dollar failure and pollution incident.
A lot of times that’s all you can do. People don’t understand why the Pentagon buys $500 sledgehammers. It’s easy when the documentation and materials requirements require you to make simple things from scratch in very limited numbers.
I am only comfortable that the highest tier of manufactures, fabricators and constructors have breadth of expertise, resources, procedures and $$$ to reliably protect themselves.
charged with providing a false document to a federal agency and now faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison
The impeachment hoaxsters are going to be in big trouble, if we adhere to that standard. Thanks fieldmarshaldj.
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