Metallurgist Admits She Falsified Test Results for Steel Used in Navy Submarines

Ox said:

What is the date on that?
It won't let me in w/o signing up.

I think that story is about a year or more old by now - no?


--------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Click to expand...

standardparts said:

Might be a better topic in another forum. Please move or delete if inappropriate here.

"A former metallurgist at a foundry that provides steel used to make U.S. Navy submarines pleaded guilty in federal court in Tacoma, Wash., on Monday to falsifying test results that measured the strength and toughness of the metal"........ "a practice that prosecutors said she continued for more than three decades."

Metallurgist Admits She Falsified Test Results for Steel Used in Navy Submarines - The New York Times

Click to expand...

PeteM said:

Turns out that lying, year after year, is bad after all.

So much for all the sub movies that show our heroes imagining some extra safety factor as they dive deeper and deeper into the frigid depths. One hopes hull integrity hasn't been compromised.

Click to expand...

Ox said:

I think that story is about a year or more old by now - no?

Click to expand...

rrrgcy said:

There’ll always be flotsam and jetsam.

Click to expand...

rrrgcy said:

Various other sources: Discovered in 2017 lab tech found test card alterations then discrepancies, company in 2020 entered into a deferred prosecution agreement kinda sort of misled the govt about the fraud and she consequently got thrown in front of the bus and now finally pled guilty. She falsified 240 productions of steel, the foundry having supplied these over a 30 year period, being a substantial amount of the Navy Virginia Class sub program’s (Electric Boat + Newport News) cast steel from Bradken Inc. The “Navy mitigated the safety issue.”

I think I read this co. can do testing on up to 22” thick steel. Maybe the Navy doesn’t do much and relies on in-house trust and barely if ever verify, like it was with the FAA’s arrangement with Boeing for the 737Max (protocols and checks and balances seemed to devolve and transfer wholly to in-house Boeing company employees)! I forgot what they call that program where the co. employee becomes a so-called govt. certifying agent.

Aside from this conviction re subs, the co. furnished special steel castings for navy ships - rudder hubs, shell/decks, leading & trailing edges… and ballistic steel stuff. I’m sure Navy all over all of it to see what else could be bad. It supports the mining industry and lined up w Australia, now, too.

Navy says w subs there are only 300 critical suppliers to rely on, many sole source, and that’s a huge problem. No market no leverage. There’ll always be flotsam and jetsam.

Click to expand...

Milland said:

Especially if a sub hull fails!

Click to expand...

Milland said:

In a brittle failure you could have sections fracturing out from the hull, releasing whathaveyou to the seas.

Click to expand...

swarfless said:

I think that metallurgist was right & wrong. Right that the test was invalid, wrong to lie. Subs operate in liquid water, right? -100F is not far off dry ice/ solid CO2 .. subs operate in solid water at that temperature??? Looks like a case of a freshly graduated engineer writing specs, doesn't it? BTW most under-ice water is at +4 C as I understand it. A quick Google gives the record low temp for sea water as - 2.8 C QED.

Click to expand...

EmanuelGoldstein said:

They don't have a brittle failure. They implode. The Thresher crushed in something like 47 milliseconds. The shock was equal to something like 20,000 lbs of TNT.

The pressures are pretty impressive.

Click to expand...

Mark Rand said:

The point of the test is to make sure that the brittle/ductile transition temperature is well outside the expected operating range. If a single test failed at -100°F, then further tests would be needed to determine just what the transition temperature was. Likewise, if the alloy was supposed to have a below 100°F brittle/ductile transition temperature and it didn't, then it isn't the alloy that was specified. Possible sulfur or phosphorus contamination IIRC.

So, the tests were rather important even if the end product wasn't likely to operate at those temperatures. If Charpy and Izod testing had been a thing in 1908, the Titanic might not have had such an unfortunate maiden voyage.

Click to expand...