Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in
  • Congratulations KootK on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

And here there is a lesson in ethics 1

Status
Not open for further replies.
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

Sort by date Sort by votes
When I mentioned this in the Failures forum, I never expected it would make its way to the Ethics forum...

From EP's article:
Exactly what drove Thomas to falsify the results of the strength tests is still unclear, but according to the Justice Department, she thought it was “stupid” that the Navy demanded the tests be carried out at -100° Fahrenheit. As a result, the department contends, Thomas changed the results to false positives in some cases.
Click to expand...
As concerning as the lack of testing is, what is more concerning is the fact that some tests failed and were changed to a passing grade.

That takes this out of the domain of "I just think the test parameters are stupid" and straight to "I see failures, but I'm going to hide them". Basic ethics just took a big hit...

Dan - Owner
Footwell%20Animation%20Tiny.gif
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I worked in a soils lab briefly on an earth dam where the other techs regularly faked sieve test results to get fines contents that met the specification. Only problem was they were so bad at faking it - they numbers they made up never added up properly even for simple formulas. Of course in that case there was a broader issue - mainly that the dam designers produced a specification for fines content where the available material on site with the required fines content wasnt available in the required quantities.

This stuff definitely happens in the west.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
geotechguy1: A former supervisor wanted me to enter "good" numbers in a spreadsheet. She told me "numbers don't have to be correct, they have to look good". I just gave her the spreadsheet for her to enter whatever numbers she wanted. It was just numbers to publish some data to make us look good in the public, nothing that would result in any actual construction. And I bet no single person actually cared if the numbers looked bad or not. The number showed our building energy consumption was increasing, and they were supposed to look like we were reducing energy consumption. But I still didn't want anything to do with it. If this ever comes up that the numbers are wrong, I'm very sure that supervisor would not have remembered the part where she told me to fake them.....
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Last time I heard we don't use subs in liquid nitrogen.
Click to expand...

-70C is not liquid nitrogen temp, which is closer to -196C. If she thought it was stupid, she should have suggested an value engineering change proposal (VECP) to save the Navy money; but I would expect that the shipyard would have nixed it for engineering reasons. And, I agree with the notion that the temperature buys margin for a brittleness spec that you don't want to do on an actual sub, although the USS Connecticut apparently attempted such a test ;-).
which related to tests that examined how the submarines would fare in a collision
Click to expand...

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Remember one of the causes for the loss of the submarine Thresher. A long blow on the emergency air resulted in piping or nozzles into the ballast tanks freezing hard with condensed moisture. Cold enough it didn't thaw even a little in the slow drop to crush depth. This was in the Gulf Stream.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Most of the problems apparently faced by the Thresher were basic design and basic Navy procedures being followed. As to melting - it looks like it was less than 10 minutes from the emergency attempt at blowing the tanks to implosion.

"The pressurized air rapidly expanding in the pipes cools down, condensing moisture and depositing it on temporary strainers installed in the system to protect the moving parts of the valves during new construction (which should have been removed prior to sea trials)"


The reactor operator stated he would not have followed procedure given the depth of operation and would have kept the steam running to the turbine for propulsion and driving to the surface (which does not require blowing the ballast - subs are close to neutral and need the air to lift the top of the sub out of the water, not to get to the surface.)

However, it's bad to falsify data and probably the company should have reneged on the contract, forcing the Navy to either not over-specify or to go elsewhere or to go with a new contract at a more appropriate price for what must be a more expensive process/material.

The period of performance was long enough that I'd guess they could not admit their first material didn't meet contract and were forced to stick with the process lest that fact be exposed. Plus, that original delivery was essentially proved in use and changing that might require re-qualifying the entire submarine, depending on how critical the components were.

Also, VECP is a non-starter. While it might reduce the cost to the Navy it will certainly reduce the profit to the company, possibly by a very large amount. The VECP process needs to be initiated by the Navy and offer contracts that pay for the initial investigation and make up for the likely loss of profit. It also needs to pay for that aforementioned re-qualification process, which might be an order of magnitude or more than the savings.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I am the same age as the woman in the BBC story. This is exactly why source inspectors like me were and INMO still necessary. We earned our money keeping others accountable. My former profession as a source inspector and quality engineer in the defense industry under American MIL-Q-9858 quality programs hardly exists anymore. Furthermore, falsification of data is inexcusable and should be punished by law.

I had training with U.S. Navy Nuclear laboratory in Pittsburgh.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I meanwhile heard podcast where they discussed that. Regarding the temperature requirement they said the subs also surface in arctic regions and that air temperature gets closer to the required test temperature. So whatever the Navy required, wasn't just an arbitrary value to be ignored.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
[URL unfurl="true" said:
https://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/ask/63-What-are-the-highest-and-lowest-temperatures-on-Earth-#:~:text=The%20coldest%20temperature%20ever%20measured,at%20Vostok%20Station%20in%20Antarctica.[/URL]]The coldest temperature ever measured was -126 Fahrenheit (-88 Celsius) at Vostok Station in Antarctica.
Click to expand...

[URL unfurl="true" said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_of_Cold#:~:text=On%20February%206%2C%201933%2C%20a,valley%20between%20Oymyakon%20and%20Tomtor.[/URL]]On February 6, 1933, a temperature of −67.7 °C (−89.9 °F) was recorded at Oymyakon's weather station.[4] This is the coldest reliably measured temperature for the Northern Hemisphere. The weather station is in a valley between Oymyakon and Tomtor.
Click to expand...

So the spec temperature was actually a bit shy of coldest ever, and for providing some level of margin. Nevertheless, those temperatures would only have applied to the conning tower, since sitting in surface water limits the temperature to around freezing.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well, the movies show the subs front projecting out of the water for a second when emergency-surfacing at high speed :) Sure not enough time to cool down to air temperature and obviously the water pressure isn't high while exposed to air.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Never a swabby or navel engineer but the location of a bull leak might be considered irrelevant vs the fact that it leaked.

And yes, e ;)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Sure, for about 30 seconds; so unless we're talking about one of those movies with instantaneous freezing, the outer surface of the sub will barely drop below the temperature of the water.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'm assuming the temperature requirement was due to fracture toughness concerns, any metal person who doesn't understand the fact that the temperature is important in fracture toughness is a bit of a red flag.

It's cold down deep in the ocean.... put two and two together lady.

They talk about strength, but that could mean anything because of the non-technical nature of the authors.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It's a measurable property that helps to build confidence that the material we're being given is the material we ordered (and the one whose other properties - not all of them so readily measurable - the design relies upon).

Anyone going to stick their neck out and suggest there's no point in measuring UTS of materials either, since we don't expect in-service loads to approach that level?

A.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Moon, I have done this in material specification.
Put something very odd in it and see if the people bidding comment.
If they don't then they didn't read the spec and they are out of consideration.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

haynewp
  • Locked
  • Question
Area of competence and state licensure 4
2
Replies
37
Views
868
JAE
JAE
Jim6e
  • Locked
  • Question
Who constitutes a client of a professional engineer? 13
3 4 5
Replies
98
Views
1K
LionelHutz
LionelHutz
Envelope3
  • Locked
  • Question
Reporting Practice and Ethics Violations Based on Information Gathered during Civil Lawsuit 1
Replies
7
Views
193
stevenal
stevenal
XR250
  • Locked
  • Question
How is the Responsibility Divided? 2
Replies
9
Views
322
Tomfh
Tomfh
djcbgn
  • Locked
  • Question
Potential Hire Claimed a PE license but verification showed it had lapsed 5
Replies
18
Views
568
AZPete
AZPete

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top Bottom