25 Replies to “O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas”

  1. There is nothing unique to CALTRANS about this. Nobody listens to the Metallurgists until there is a catastrophe. Metallurgists are too expensive. The first C-5 Galaxy has the ability to kneel down, using hydraulics, for loading. When it did, it stayed there because some idiot didn’t wash out the tube drawing lubricant before heat treating. I’ve seen workers in tube mills turn the hydrostatic test pressure down when the inspector walked away. I had a widely respected company president scream at me (in a meeting) that the XYZ tube company does not purposely make tubes with more than two holes in them (one in each end, for you without a wit). The standard testing notch for tubes used to be a 1/8 inch drilled hole. Cracks in pipelines, platforms falling in Kansas City, bridges falling in Minneapolis. Nothing criminal here, just workmen and foremen thinking that they know more than that stupid engineer.

  2. I got a million of ’em. Alpha case on titanium in F-15s. Forgings cracking in service because of “in spec” out of balance Mn/Si. Weld flux mine change without analyzing the product. and on and on.

  3. “…Nothing criminal here, just workmen and foremen thinking that they know more than that stupid engineer…”
    Oh, I don’t know about that. As the Quebec corruption inquiry and the Elliot Lake inquest are showing us, engineers, politicians, and inspectors can sometimes be convinced to look away.

  6. As in all professions, there are incompetent engineers and there are crooked engineers. I know very few crooked, many more incompetent, but by far the most are good, honest, competent engineers. Most catastrophic destructions, IMYO, come from workmen looking for a shortcut, a stupid manager looking for an attaboy, a purchasing agent looking for a bonus, or groupthink on behalf of engineers that have forgotten the “lessons learned.”

  7. “Hey, clean is clean right? Run down to the autoparts store and get a case of brake cleaner.”
    A case of ‘use that instead, it won’t make a diff’ from aviation.
    A supplier ran out of raw cork to make plugs so they used bleached cork instead. The cork plug was used to seal the root end of a propeller blade to hold the lead wool added to balance the blade. Aluminium and lead combined with the residual chlorine in the bleached cork caused corrosion inside the blade root. There were two instances of a blade separating in flight creating such an imbalance that the engine was ripped from its mount in seconds. One plane landed safely while the other crashed killing all on board.
    Specifications and procedures exist for a reason. Fools don’t follow them.

  8. the spraying amounted to an “isolated case.”
    How many failures does it take to bring down a bridge – one? – an isolated case?

  9. It has been my experience that the gee whiz boys are rather fond of blaming installation procedures to account for major design failures. The contractors installing the shit product then get to cover all the expenses of changing out failed components while the weasels quietly feverishly redesign the product. A few months later, hundreds of miles away, a new client buys the same product and, coincidentally, hires the same contractor. Lo and behold, a redesign. The contractors need the work so the weasels get away with it. It’s total B.S.
    My crap detector tells me there is a much larger issue than galvanizing here. Dyson Corp. is putting out a crap product and deserves to loose the contract. This has union stink all over it.
    The Chinese produce better products than American union workers.
    Yea, 1 quick Google tells it all.
    http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/bad-bay-bridge-steel-rods-originated-in-ohio/Content?oid=2336169

  11. I have a crap detector too. When you use the words “gee whiz boys” that tells me you are one of those “full of crap” people that are in every shop. Over the years, failures in service are caused in a small amount by design problems, a much larger extent by manufacturing, purchasing and quality problems, and mostly by installation problems. Most of these have a root cause in management problems – and as distasteful to me to say it, union problems are not a major source of failures, of course excluding sabotage.

  12. One thing I learned about Engineers in over 40 years of supervising trades. The one thing they are expert at is ass covering. Engineers never make a mistake, they call it a revision instead. Tell us again why Engineers wear the iron ring on their pinky fingers. Personally I loved Engineers, they kept my family well fed for over 40 years. It is very hard to hire good engineers anymore, none of them will make a revision or a fix without consulting a roomful of ass covering so called expert engineers. Very few of them stamp anything. The biggest reason that projects have such huge cost over runs is because of Engineering mistakes made in the original design and spec. and all the resulting rework. The oldest trick in their playbook is to immediately blame the trades people, who carry out their work for them. They just don’t make them like they used too. Many of the worst came from England. Along with their BSing tradesmen with useless Board of Trade tq’s.

  13. Investigations require both integrity and acceptance of error, honest error. Complex builds will experience modifications during construction and acceptance. ( my experience aero space)
    As stated by Fearless leader @9:17 who goes first in acknowledging the need for a fix is now a big problem. Litigation and the inherent cautionary need for CYA now drives the investigation. Large legal fees becoming the main thrust.
    In my possibly naïve understanding this attitude was not as prevalent prior to “baby boomer” leadership in many professional disciplines. Cheers;

  14. Many of the worst came from England. Along with their BSing tradesmen with useless Board of Trade tq’s. I agree with you there. Did I say anything bad about the Unions or trades, in general? I also agree with you about “Many of the worst came from England. Along with their BSing tradesmen with useless Board of Trade tq’s”.
    You aare also right about something else, in spite about being right for the wrong reasons – “It is very hard to hire good engineers anymore, none of them will make a revision or a fix without consulting a roomful of ass covering so called expert engineers.” This is a problem for several reasons. The quality of book learning is quite high. However,there aren’t any good mentors left (note going back without consulting other engineers. It is obviously you can’t be reasoned with and will accept nothing from the engineers as per your descriptive language. As a trades stupidvisor you fall into my management stupidity category. Very few companies have “lessons learned” literature, so the engineer needs to go back to non-existant mentors to find out if a logical or spec answer is the wrong answer from experience. Since you don’t learn from experience, and have a big insulting mouth, you can’t provide any help either. It is going to get worse! Few of the young engineers and all of the trades stupidvisors, don’t know the “why” that things must be done in a certain manner under specific rules. And since you don’t care, and I will be dead before you ever ask, you won’t learn from me ore most other 70-year-olds. When the aircraft start falling out of the air, it won.t be because of any of the above; it will be because of all of the above and you will have forgotten why.

  17. In most cases of failure there is enough blame to go around without singling one part of the job over the other. An engineering flaw, compounded by a manufacturing flaw compounded by an installation flaw is all it takes to bring down a bridge. Many years ago I took part in a job where the engineers failed to realize the near impossibility of a good install using their one off design. The parts manufacturer’s (lack of) quality control simply added to the complexity of the install and the installer was unfamiliar with the product and the design parameters. The end user was not happy with the finished results.

  19. I recall being involved with a military equipement supplier….
    The final drive assemblies were having the main shafts shear….
    We finally tracked down the problem to the subcontractor manufacturing the shafts….good steel, machined to speck…but the thing that tipped me off was the machine operators were paid by “piece work”.
    These “recent immigrants” ignored the directions of speed of feed and depth of cut and the lathe tools were stressing the finished product….hairline cracks that escaped X-ray quality control. Haste makes waste….

  20. And this crap is happening in the country where they built the Empire State Building in a little more than a year and the Hoover Dam and powerhouse in only 5 years. Now they have multi-billion dollar programs to build non-performing aircraft and suppliers touching up critical galvanized bolts with spray cans. The problem ain’t California, Kate. It’s the USA going down the drain and dragging the rest of the western world with it.

  21. Hopefully no one dies before they get the bridge “right.” The sad part is everyone is finger pointing, including those that cold have prevented it. The architect said it was a poor design, but his company submitted the poor design anyway (and the architect got paid for it).
    The design included safety and longevity critical parts made out of super special materials. Materials that might as well be impossibiltium and unobtainium. But do not worry, someone will sell them the parts, even if they might not work. But they could have designed it with standard materials instead. Maybe the design would have been a little less elegant, with a less slim tower; or the cost may have been 0.05% more.
    But think of how beautiful the bridge is! Think of all the money they saved using betyond state of the art parts! Who cares if it might be unsafe? Who cares if it mighr never open? The architect got paid, the parts suppliers got paid. The workers got paid. The CALTRANS workers got paid, and probably retired by now too.

  22. Hummmmmmmm….sounds very familiar to the same problem had in the oil field.Mandrels and drill pipe with an MTTF of 1200 hrs failing after 200. After literally multi-millions of $$$ lost,seems the two rail cars of raw material was 4130,not 4150.And all it took was a look at the specs to realize whoops,wrong steel.Unfortunately,the person ordering said material couldn’t,or didn’t,read the design specs,and had filed all the paperwork quite nicely,in their desk.But at least the person had the guts to stand up and say F**K,I screwed up.
    Needless to say,new QA procedures put in place.
    And no,you cannot blame the machinist for working a piece of material to 4150 specs,not realizing she is actually using 4130.That’s not their job.The material is supposed to be what is called for,verified and checked, long before it gets to them on the floor. Sorta like using titanium to make a mandrel adaptor,then wondering why it is drilling its way through the mandrel,then failing.
    Or trying to mate a 4 1/2 API with a 4 1/2 IF,and using a bigger hammer.

  23. Nobody mentions the fact that one of the joys of restricted “Buy American only”
    materials laws for sheltered shovel ready jobs involves excluding many experts
    worldwide who have laboured flat out for years on China’s huge state of the art
    bridge building programs.
    When you get domestic political opportunism combined with slack external quality
    control supervision at places on their last legs running feast or famine operations
    don’t be surprised when the product lacks quality and the maker lacks integrity.
    By the time the crap hits the fan, bankruptcy will have all the bases covered and
    all the miscreants involved will be long gone.

  24. This couldn’t have anything to do with politicians choosing super-duper one off, all the bells and whistles designs for major projects instead of picking something they know is going to work, right?
    And hey, why worry about the price? Its GOVERNMENT money, they never run out.

  25. Yah Old Country Boy, I seen your big mouthed sort before too. It runs out of both of your ears at the same time. And you don’t like it when some one gives you the facts. Most of the young Engineers today have no experience on that you are right. They are also too stubborn to listen to experience until they get burned a few times as after all they think that the ring on their finger means they know everything when in reality they don’t know squat other than what they learned in books. The article was a bunch of ass covering and was probably written by an Engineer. Hi I am an Engineer and I’m here to help you. Most of them should really be assigned to CN or CPR as they make way too many mistakes and bankrupt companies. The majority of the cost over runs on projects are due to poor quality engineering.

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