Posted on 09/27/2024 2:12:08 PM PDT by Navy Patriot
Newport News Shipbuilding informed the Department of Justice that there may be intentionally faulty welds on non-critical components located on in-service submarines and aircraft carriers, according to a report by USNI News Thursday.
The faulty work was discovered by internal quality assurance systems and early indications show that some of the welding errors were intentional, according to a statement to USNI News.
"We recently discovered through internal reporting that the quality of some welds did not meet our high-quality standards. Upon this discovery, we took immediate action to communicate with our customers and regulators, investigate, determine root cause, bound these matters and insert immediate corrective actions to prevent any recurrence of these issues," the statement reads.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
my first thought as well
My first thought upon meeting them was that they were both Chinese spies.
—
Either they do as the Peoples Armed Police stationed in the US ask, or relatives back home pay a heavy price.
—” hiring inexperienced workers, in this case, welders, chosen by MBA managers,”
I have been around this type of work, not in a shipyard.
The welders must have passed previous certification tests, and then a hiring test for the work being done and the usual drug test.
Each welder is assigned a stamp to physically mark their welds. Critical welds are x-rayed, others are magnafluxed...
Fail a test and you are terminated.
Some specs allow for minor repairs.
Also, inspectors visually examine every weld, and they can “look you out”.
That said, I knew one welder that made well OVER $200,000 a year and I have been retired for years, would be more today.
During WWII shipyard welders that slugged welds were executed. Paid by the inch of weld and thickness
Most Chicom welders can’t read directions in English…Most American welders can't follow instructions written in Chinglish.
[During WWII shipyard welders that slugged welds were executed. ]
Any one such as the Chinese would have reason to put people in place to do this.
Aren’t welders still required to put the stamp on their work?
They did when I worked in power plants and steel fabrication plants.
Important Welds were also X-rayed to see if they met the requirements.
Incompent people. My son to be 22-year-old grandson, is an apprentice for a company that Exrays welds, he’s just passed his 5th test, and now has his own crew. Says the welds are pathetic, and no one fires them. Makes $28 per hr. He’ll take more test and rise higher.
No - this is Islamic - it always in.
No - this is Islamic - it always in.
What is a non-critical component on a Submarine?
Why would it be there?
Doesn’t appear anymore to be like what you knew. I’ve had government contractors working with and for me for years and it has gotten nothing but steadily worse. Contractors were brought in to the gov’t workplace 30-some years ago under the reasoning that they were a better value than GSers, easier to fire for poor performance, etc. Now I see the contractors practically bribing upper managers with high paying, almost no-show management jobs after retirement to stay embedded in organizations. It’s gotten totally corrupt.
If bad welds were made intentionally that is sabotage. Lock them up for a long long time. If convicted it is good for ten years in prison.
Forced labor Jews and non Jews did this in Hitlers war factories. They were brave and honorable men. If discovered, after torture for information they were shot.
Oddly carbon fiber impregnated with epoxy type resins are immensely strong, stronger than steel. They are magnificent in tension. They are poor in compression. The multiple compression cycles on that sub under thousands of pounds of pressure (5400 psi at the depth of the Titanic) will cause a de-lamination of the carbon fiber wraps and subsequent loss of strength. Each time that sub went down it became a little bit weaker. In contrast we use carbon fiber bottles that can hold thousands of pounds of pressure over multiple cycles with no loss in strength. It is in tension not compression.
Pipeline welders are some of the best. Those pipelines go for thousands of miles and each weld must be perfect.
In Pharmacy school a friend of mine was a pipeline welder. I was a geologist. When the oilfield crashed and burned in 1983 we both went back to school to become pharmacists. His first degree was in biology. I asked him why did you do pipeline welding. He said he made about 3 times as much money welding as he could teaching biology. We were both in our mid thirties and our classmates were 20 to 25.
I know a couple of young guys that are supposedly top notch welders. They stay away from shipyard work because shipbuilding pays poorly and is generally done in uncontrolled environments and uncomfortable positions. We generally do not have the best welders building our navy ships.
It would have to be the inspector intentionally passed inspections on faulty welds. I was a welder and paid my way through college as a structural welder. No matter how good you are a weld will have a flaw you can’t see but is picked up during inspections. You grind away the flaw and resell the joint.
This doesn’t appear to be the first time something like this has happened.
From The Navy Times, March 27, 2016:
“ In early 2015 engineers on a brand-new submarine made a troubling find: A pipe joint near the innermost chamber of its nuclear-powered engine showed signs of tampering.
The defective elbow pipe, used to funnel steam from the reactor to the sub’s propulsion turbines and generators, showed evidence of jury-rigged welding that could’ve been designed to make it appear satisfactory. But the part was already installed, the sub already commissioned.”
….
“ News of the lousy parts first emerged in August, a month after the Minnesota was to have finished its overhaul. Since then, a Justice Department-led investigation is examining the quality control issues that led the shoddy part to be installed in the $2.7-billion sub.
The same shoddy elbow joints were installed aboard attack subs North Dakota and John Warner, forcing the Navy to spend millions of dollars and many more months to repair them. If these pipes ruptured, they would leak steam and force the submarine to take emergency measures that would impair its combat effectiveness.
The culprit: shoddily constructed and improperly certified pipe fittings, welded into a part of the state-of-the-art propulsion system that was never supposed to be accessed.”
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