Newport News engineering oversight failure (foreshadowed)

Tom refers back to a student presentation from the previous day. Used to land the "real engineering expertise" point closing §5. Not developed here.

So they decided, well, we need more preheat. They came in with heating blankets and heated up just locally. This thing is big — 15 feet across and eight feet tall. They heated locally, and this time they successfully made the weld, put it back on its post, and on the first shot to forge something — big bang, cracked again. At that point they decided it was scrap. But they had a spare from 60 years before, some other press piece, and were able to fix the machine and get working again. In the meantime, this cost about five million dollars. The owner wasn't happy with their welding. There wasn't sufficient engineering oversight for what would be a little beyond the normal welding these excellent welders knew how to do. So it's not just a certified welder who can put down a good bead. Sometimes you need real engineering expertise. Increasingly I see that we don't have the real engineering expertise. I think yesterday's presentation on what happened at Newport News — they just didn't have the engineering oversight there. Hey, by the way guys, there are different types of materials out there.

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