[HN Gopher] Metallurgist admits faking steel test results for US...
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Metallurgist admits faking steel test results for US Navy subs
Author : croes
Score : 131 points
Date : 2021-11-09 14:04 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| scarmig wrote:
| I'd be curious about more details about how this was discovered.
| It says a lab employee reported discrepancies to corporate
| management after seeing evidence of altered test results etc. And
| from there it was relayed to the US Navy, which then fined the
| company. Which is how it should work.
|
| It's just I'm surprised how the institutional incentives worked
| out: there are many places where the fraud could have been
| covered up. If the Navy levied a debilitating fine on the company
| for good faith reporting of issues, it'd create incentives for
| the company to lie. And the fine was $10M... is that lower than
| might have been done if not for the good faith reporting?
| aksss wrote:
| Regarding institutional incentives, it's like this - company
| self-reports, is able to consider itself a victim of the person
| - that they were defrauded just like the Navy. They may or may
| not be bringing their own action against the former employee,
| but have every incentive to even bring something token just to
| get the ruling and make their victim status official. If they
| can be classified as a victim of the same fraud (by court, by
| DOJ) they can't be held liable for the fraud. There may be some
| other liability the company has exposure to but this would take
| care of the lions share of it. Self-reporting in this framework
| is far better than incentivizing a cover-up. Company will
| likely still have an asterisk by their name insofar as
| contracts are concerned and have to spend a metric ton paying
| the audit grifters.
| MisterTea wrote:
| This happened at an aerospace company I worked for. Someone
| didn't read the paperwork closely and missed a critical yet
| very benign step in running a job. Engineer receives an angry
| wtf email from the customer which explained that because this
| detail was missed, the entire lot had to be scrapped. The
| engineer knew all too well the legal ramifications of lying so
| he directly told the customer "oops. our bad." This bypassed
| management causing a shit storm as there was no way to "smooth
| it over" once he admitted fault. Customer sued the company and
| they had to pay big $$$ to pay for the scrapped lot. Engineer
| was senior so all that happened was a chewing by the CEO.
| radiowave wrote:
| As someone who works in the manufacturing of steel components
| for marine use, the most surprising thing for me is that
| there's no mention of any quality-system auditor being
| involved. Did the auditor miss this? _Is_ there no auditor? If
| so, why was their customer (the prime contractor) willing to
| tolerate this? Why were the company 's insurers willing to
| tolerate it?
|
| No doubt the metallurgist was grossly irresponsible here, but I
| do wonder whether they might be making a song and dance about
| this one aspect to distract from a whole chain of careless
| practice.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| > And from there it was relayed to the US Navy, which then
| fined the company. Which is how it should work.
|
| US Navy should take the step further; terminate the contract
| and blacklist the company permanently (include the board of
| directors to ensure no hopping between companies to take
| advantage). Blacklist should be shared with federal agencies.
| This would be more effective for the company not to fuck around
| with it and cut off that "it is business as usual" mentality.
| The benefits of this is accountability.
| enjrolas wrote:
| The NYT article about this same issue
| (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/us/metallurgist-navy-
| fals...) mentions that Bradken is "the Navy's leading
| supplier of cast, high-yield steel used for naval
| submarines." Without knowing the intricacies of the cast of
| suppliers for submarine parts, it's a safe bet that
| blacklisting Bradken would set back a _lot_ of naval
| construction projects by a significant amount. I imagine that
| dampens the enthusiasm within the Navy for crucifying Bradken
| as an example for the rest of 'em. If I were a competing
| foundry, and I had seen this coming and was in a position to
| show up this week with detailed quotes and delivery dates for
| replacements for Bradken's upcoming work, that might be a
| huge win for me. My guess is that there's a way for another
| company to 'pull' the Navy out of this massive logjam, but
| the Navy can't easily 'push' itself out.
| mlyle wrote:
| > terminate the contract and blacklist the company
| permanently (include the board of directors to ensure no
| hopping between companies to take advantage).
|
| Here, Bradken acquired a foundry that had been faking test
| results for decades before; eventually discovered it, and
| reported it to the Navy once they did. Giving Bradken the
| death penalty out of this seems absurd.
|
| (Not all of Bradken's actions post-discovery were perfect,
| and it did take them several years post-acquisition before
| they detected the ongoing fraud-- so there was definitely a
| failure here, but...).
| Ensorceled wrote:
| That provides a lot of incentive to bribe employees from your
| competitors to falsify data ... totally destroys their
| company and they can't even create a new company to compete!
| krisoft wrote:
| And that in turn puts a very good incentive on companies to
| design systems where a single employee can't falsify the
| data!
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I bribe TWO employees at my competitor ...
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| and TWO employees at your competitor can point at you for
| bribing if they get caught.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Independent validation.
|
| It's not unheard of in manufacturing for random parts to
| be selected for testing to ensure compliance. In fact,
| I'd be surprise if this supplier could get away with the
| same fraud with GM or Ford. One of the side effects of
| having suppliers design just barely adequate parts is the
| need to rigorously test that those parts cut only the
| maximally necessary corners, and not one more.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Yes, this is the real solution, not over the top
| punishment for suppliers.
| scarmig wrote:
| Which is the same as killing the company. If the executives
| are going to be permanently jobless and destitute, then
| there's a strong temptation to try to cover things up, which
| is the worst case scenario for the Navy.
|
| ETA: in some ways, the Navy might have reasons to prefer this
| contractor in the future, because the issue seems to have
| been caused by a lazy rogue employee and the company seems to
| have strong enough ethical/internal standards that the Navy
| can reasonably expect issues to be brought to their
| attention.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| > Which is the same as killing the company. If the
| executives are going to be permanently jobless and
| destitute, then there's a strong temptation to try to cover
| things up, which is the worst case scenario for the Navy.
|
| My response might be harsh but tough shit for the company.
| If the company made a choice to fraud the government, then
| they should be accountable for their decision. The board of
| directors is fully responsible for every action of their
| company including their employees actions as the employee
| are in capacity and representative of the company. If the
| employee went rogue/lazy then it is the company due
| diligence to ensure that every data is verified and correct
| as the company is still responsible for everything.
|
| They simply can fire the employee and could keep fudging
| the data. Whelps the company did it again, gee whiz. They
| can fire the another employee and say it is all good. This
| mentality is why companies are pushing the boundaries with
| the governments and still can blame on their employee and
| get away from the accountability.
| ysavir wrote:
| I think the point of the post above is that if a company
| faces a death-or-lie scenario, they're incentivized to
| put as much effort as possible into covering things up.
| Whereas if there's some leniency, they're more
| incentivized to cooperate and be forward about things.
| short12 wrote:
| In that case drop criminal charges left and right. It's
| still illegal to commit treason right?
| disposableuname wrote:
| We _do_ drop criminal charges left and right in order to
| bring forth information. We have whistleblower
| protections; we have immunity in exchange for testimony.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| (Apparently not, as per January 6th, 2021.)
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The world isn't black and white.
|
| That level of accountability is very expensive however -
| you might find yourself wishing for the good old days
| when government toilet seats only cost $600.
| capableweb wrote:
| > lazy rogue employee
|
| Are we talking about the same individual? The one named in
| the article is "Director of Metallurgy". When you're in a
| position like that, you represent the company, especially
| for work orders.
| jjk166 wrote:
| If you sell me a defective product, I'd expect some
| restitution, even if you in good faith told me the product was
| defective. A 10 million dollar fine is probably small compared
| to what the Navy will need to pay to deal with bad steel.
|
| Had they not told the navy in good faith once they knew about
| the issue, the execs at the company would be facing jailtime
| just like the employee.
| scarmig wrote:
| I'm sure that contractors have stiffed the Navy in bad faith
| in the past, and I'm also sure that most of the stiffing
| never resulted in penalties.
|
| But, yeah, of course there's a incentive and risk landscape
| that executives considered when choosing whether to report or
| not. I'm curious about that process and also the process by
| which the Navy determined the fine amount. Did they take into
| consideration how it'd affect the company's books and levy a
| fine that'd amount to a slap on the wrist?
| sofixa wrote:
| Is it just me or is it entirely wrong to have a contractor test
| themselves? It just begs for failure, like Boeing certifying the
| 737 Max or this. The incentives are all wrong, and they know they
| will get away with it with minimal fines.
| clircle wrote:
| Military testing starts the contractor testing and progresses
| into development testing and operational testing. As
| acquisitions pass through the wickets, there is an increasing
| amount of oversight from the both the Services and from
| independent testers.
| capableweb wrote:
| > This offense is unique in that it was neither motivated by
| greed nor any desire for personal enrichment.
|
| How... What? What was it motivated by, if not to still be able to
| sell material that didn't live up to the requirements of the
| purchaser? Why would you sell something you know is not what you
| say it is, if you're not motivated by selling just that thing?
| tyingq wrote:
| _" she thought it was "stupid" that the Navy required the tests
| to be conducted at -100F (-70C)"_
|
| I'd be curious to know what that requirement is for too, though
| I'd likely not just ignore it.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Likely it has to do with the scaling of the actual property
| being measured. For example with decreasing temperature,
| steels become less and less able to resist impact damage.
| Thus getting hit by something small at cryogenic temperatures
| is equivalent to being hit by something big at normal
| temperatures; so if you want to test whether a submarine can
| survive an impact that would be impractical to simulate in a
| lab, you could instead cool your test sample down a lot and
| test it with a smaller, cheaper device.
|
| My knowledge of shipbuilding is limited but I believe the
| navy suffered quite a bit during WW2 from certain steels
| undergoing a transition in the low temperatures of the north
| atlantic that caused brittle fracture. I would imagine
| testing at ultra low temperatures accelerates the rate at
| which such brittle fractures can be detected.
| newacct583 wrote:
| Which is sort of the same thing. "I don't want to run this
| expensive or complicated test because it's stupid" is
| certainly a kind of cost cutting.
| tyingq wrote:
| Maybe, but not necessarily. I bet many of us paper over
| requirements we think don't add value, where we can get
| away with it. Solely because we think it adds no value.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| Anyone who would paper over requirements that involve
| lives is a terrible engineer and should be blacklisted
| from anything resembling engineering.
| alistairSH wrote:
| While both might be illegal, there's a massive difference
| between papering over a requirement for a business
| application and papering over a requirement for a
| mechanical specification.
|
| The former might cost a customer money; the latter puts
| lives at risk.
| tyingq wrote:
| >the latter puts lives at risk
|
| Maybe. There are certainly past cases of the military
| creating unreasonable/unhelpful specifications.
|
| Edit: Not justification for what she did. Just curiosity,
| having spent a fair amount of time in the military.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| It is not the job of an individual to simply just ignore
| a spec instead of bringing up a complaint.
| tyingq wrote:
| Yes, I'm not justifying what she did. I am, however,
| curious if the requirement was "stupid" or not.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| There is always a chance it is, however without some deep
| knowledge on the reasons for the spec, its impossible to
| say why a spec exists in the first place.
|
| Many of these large scale engineering specs are "take the
| worst possible situation you can ever think of and design
| it so that it can survive 1.3x of that". Yes it sounds
| stupid to the layman, but this is how you make shit that
| survives everything you toss at it.
|
| Ignoring "dumb specifications" is the reason why SpaceX
| lost a payload. They used non aeronautical grade metal,
| which did not conform to the requirements for
| spaceflight, causing a mission failure.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| According to other coverage it was not a failure to run the
| tests, it was changing failed grades to passes.
|
| https://www.wavy.com/news/military/navy/metallurgist-
| faked-s...
| tbihl wrote:
| It probably significantly improved her return on brain
| damage.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| I don't know about how cold deep artic waters may be (I doubt
| that much), but strength-stress curves are likely why. The
| easiest way to make something last long and not have
| unexpected accidents is to overrate it big time - such that
| any wear would need to become blatant.
|
| To take an ergonomically silly exampke shovel handle could be
| a three inch diameter of solid steel that can take five
| metric tons per square centimeter as pressure without
| bending. If it wears out enough that it could snap by human
| body weight it would have to be worn quite a bit.
| jhgb wrote:
| Salt water won't go much below zero. At oceanic salinity
| levels I doubt there's any place with liquid water below
| -2C.
| soco wrote:
| Submarines don't stay all the time under water.
| jhgb wrote:
| They're designed to spend as much time under water as
| possible (i.e., months, basically). That's the whole
| reason for nuclear power on submarines.
| soco wrote:
| The official requirement of the US Navy seems to disagree
| and I tend to trust they know better than us what they
| design their gadgets for. The metallurgist also thought
| they knew better, because they're operating submarines
| for their lives... oh wait.
| jhgb wrote:
| We have no knowledge of what those castings were used
| for. It's impossible to judge whether the requirement for
| these parts was excessive/copy-pasted, or not, and if it
| was, then by how much.
| soco wrote:
| Okay I think I understand now where you're coming from
| and it was answered somewhere else in this discussion:
| when we receive a weird requirement we can ask for
| confirmation and clarifications and even express
| disagreement, but we _will implement it_ after all that.
| Anything else would be at least disingenuous, if not
| worse.
| tyingq wrote:
| I'm curious what the requirement was for, and why she
| thought it was stupid. Nothing justifies how she just
| skipped it, but it is interesting that she did, and how
| long it went undiscovered.
| cmurf wrote:
| South pole mean winter low is -76F but -128F has been
| recorded. While the water isn't going to get that
| temperature, subs need to surface periodically. I bet they've
| looked at the probability of needing the ability to operate
| in extreme cold, and -100F is the compromise.
| tyingq wrote:
| I had assumed the tests were related to pressure and depth,
| where the temp isn't much off of 0C. Not an area of
| expertise for me though.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| A submarine cannot surface at the south pole.
| simcop2387 wrote:
| Yet. Give it time. Though, i believe they just meant the
| waters surrounding Antarctica.
| VistaBrokeMyPC wrote:
| Yet? There's land underneath the ice at the south pole.
| ortusdux wrote:
| There are plenty of things to control for when designing and
| producing steel. An important consideration for some
| applications is the brittle to ductile transition
| temperature. Some steels have a DBTT around 0degC, which
| means that they loose most of their impact resistance below
| that temp. By adjusting the chemistry, processing methods,
| and post-processing methods, you can adjust the DBTT of steel
| down below -70degC. My guess is that they were being paid to
| supply steel with a DBTT below -70degC, and that the contract
| included proof testing. The standard testing method would be
| a Charpy impact test at various temperatures. It sounds like
| they were making complex castings, so they probably had some
| non-standard testing requirements.
|
| More info:
|
| https://www.punchlistzero.com/dbtt-ductile-brittle-
| transitio...
|
| https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/12/21/why-cold-steel-is-
| bri...
| abakker wrote:
| Its interesting, but poor quality steel with sulphur
| contamination is one of the theories behind the failures of
| the titanic.
|
| >Metallurgical and mechanical analyses were performed on
| steel and rivet samples recovered from the wreck of the RMS
| Titanic. It was found that the steel possessed a ductile-
| to-brittle transition temperature that was very high with
| respect to the service temperature, making the material
| brittle at ice-water temperatures. This has been attributed
| to both chemical and microstructural factors. It has also
| been found that the wrought iron rivets used in the
| construction of Titanic contained an elevated amount of
| incorporated slag, and that the orientation of the slag
| within the rivets may hold an explanation for how the ship
| accumulated damage during its encounter with the iceberg.
|
| Source: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-C13-17a1
| 7f71ae2f9...
| ortusdux wrote:
| Yeah, even a small % of sulfur can shave off 50% or more
| of your strength. A small amount of phosphorus (<1%) can
| raise the DBTT above 0degC. The average ocean temp at
| 200m is 4degC, so you could understand why the steel
| chemistry is important in subs. Luckily, these can be
| tested for non-destructively.
| tyingq wrote:
| So sounds like designing for surface collisions (other
| vessels, icebergs) in a very cold area maybe?
| ortusdux wrote:
| The Navy is understandably cagey about how they surface
| through ice-sheets, but this Smarter Every Day video is
| the best summary I have seen.
| https://youtu.be/XFJnWp1tAdU
|
| Basically, some part of the sub needs to be strong enough
| to reliably break ice at sub-zero temps. The rest needs
| to maintain its strength at those temps.
| jeffdn wrote:
| Yes, U.S. Navy nuclear submarines go under the polar ice
| caps somewhat frequently -- as did Soviet (and do
| Russian) nuclear submarines as well. It's a good place to
| hide from prying eyes, as not only can ships not (easily)
| follow you there, but the sound produced by all the ice
| moving and grinding makes passive sonar quite
| ineffective.
|
| The YouTube channel _Smarter Every Day_ recently had a
| video series on a nuclear submarine under the arctic ice.
| adwww wrote:
| Presumably it makes you invisible to any magnetic anomaly
| detection via the air or satellites as well.
| belorn wrote:
| It would be interesting to know how cold the ballast tanks
| (and connected pipes) gets when the compressed air get
| released. Air going from high pressure to low can quickly
| drop the temperature, especially if its already at a fairly
| low point to start with.
| hacknat wrote:
| It sounds like it was motivated by laziness.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Other coverage says the tests were run, but fails were
| reported as passes.
|
| https://www.wavy.com/news/military/navy/metallurgist-
| faked-s...
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I've operated environmental testing chambers for automotive
| customers. It's comparatively quick and easy to do the +85C
| high-temperature testing, but it takes a long time and/or an
| expensive, oversized refrigeration unit for a chamber and the
| parts in it to reach the target -40C/F low temperature.
| -70C/-100F would probably take a very, very long time.
|
| Even in the brutally suspicious automotive industry, it's
| common to have an operator manually copy the chamber
| temperature or thermocouple reading to the test report.
| Especially if you believed that the test requirement was
| excessive, there would certainly be a temptation to lie and
| say that the temperature had reached the target.
|
| I wonder how the lie got discovered. Did her successor notice
| that they were less productive than she had been, because the
| chamber was slower than what she claimed it could do? Was the
| chamber incapable of reaching the target temperatures? Did
| the measured test results come out different?
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Sloth perhaps and seeking the path of least resistance? If they
| receive no sales commission just check the box and get it done
| and them out.
| capableweb wrote:
| If it was a random employee, then I'd agree with you that it
| would be possible. But she is/was the director of metallurgy
| at the foundry, so hard to remove her from any
| responsibility.
| aritmo wrote:
| Indeed, it's a very silly statement. As if the specific
| requirement was not meant to be taken literally but the
| metallurgist should abide to it anyways.
|
| The metallurgist just wanted to save some $$$ by selling
| rejected/out-of-specs products.
| Narretz wrote:
| That's a giant leap in logic. She wouldn't even save money,
| the company would. I doubt this was the only test they did on
| the steel. It might have been that from her perspective she
| got the same steel over and over again, and just didn't do
| the work, because she was lazy.
| GordonS wrote:
| Incredible they got away with this for so long!
|
| I worked as a developer, then architect, at oil and gas tooling
| companies for several years, and got to know many parts of the
| business. Something of note here is that they took their supply
| chain very seriously - some of their equipment will sit subsea
| for _decades_ , and failures could be catastrophic for the
| environment as well as in monetary terms, so you can understand
| why.
|
| For suppliers involved with fabrication or testing (e.g. pressure
| testing, weld inspections and xrays), our logistics people would
| routinely physically visit the supplier to audit their records
| and watch the process with their own eyes.
| [deleted]
| h2odragon wrote:
| Debating whether or not its stupid to do the steel test at -100F
| misses the point, the performance of the steel is plotable as a
| curve on a graph, and the cold test is one point of data that
| goes into the interpolation that makes that curve.
|
| If you're assuming inputs to that equation that dont exist it has
| implications beyond just "how does that steel perform cold"; it
| means that you might actually have a quite different curve but
| won't know it because your data was bad to begin with.
|
| Of course we hackers know how to avoid such obvious and silly
| mistakes; and make things like Zillow's home buying algorithms
| work _perfectly_...
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| I still can't wrap my head around there being only one individual
| involved here and this playing out over decades. Surely there was
| more than one person working to test and verify here, and an
| auditor involved somewhere. Then, once discovered something
| seemingly so impactful yields a paltry fine? Feels like there's a
| chunk missing from this story.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Speculation warning.
|
| I would imagine a higher up got very angry every time a batch
| failed.
|
| After awhile you learn to just keep your head down. Many people
| don't feel safe enough to push back. Or they stop questioning
| after awhile.
|
| Maybe someone was failing batches, and they kept getting
| replaced until the batches "improved"
|
| At any rate. This is what audits are for.
|
| Did this person never take a vacation, where someone else would
| come in and see issues? Banks force people to take a month off
| to force they issued out in the open
| SamPatt wrote:
| I've seen this happen first hand, albeit with far lower
| stakes.
|
| I was a wire puller in a factory that refurbished subway
| cars. High voltage cables cannot have any breaks in
| insulation because they're carrying a huge amount of power
| and you could get shorts and fires.
|
| Our supplier frequently shipped damaged cables. Our manager
| tried working with them to change their packing and shipping
| method to prevent this, but it still kept happening and it
| would cause serious delays on the line.
|
| Our manager was under serious pressure from the top staff to
| straighten this out and would get livid if a new batch of
| cables came in damaged, often blaming us for improper
| handling.
|
| Eventually employees learned to "fix" cables coming in with
| heat shrink and electrical tape to keep manager happy. This
| was dangerous and when eventually discovered by quality
| assurance it became a big issue. Manager was moved somewhere
| else.
| croutonwagon wrote:
| Last time I worked I the banking sector, the requirement was
| not a month, but just a week. It just had to be a contiguous
| week and not stacked on a banking holiday, or if it was you
| just needed an extra day. For example if this was going to me
| my week. I'd have to take Monday off since Thursday is a
| holiday.
| mzkply wrote:
| All it takes is an auditor that can't see the minute
| discrepancies and on it goes for years.
| sharmin123 wrote:
| Snapchat Safety Tips: Secure Snapchat Account:
| https://www.hackerslist.co/snapchat-safety-tips-secure-snapc...
| 1cvmask wrote:
| This from the article:
|
| When confronted with the falsified results, Ms Thomas suggested
| that in some cases she gave metal positive results because she
| thought it was "stupid" that the Navy required the tests to be
| conducted at -100F (-70C),
|
| -
|
| Could someone explain to me why the tests would need to be at
| that temperature as well. I also find it pointless as it is way
| below the freezing point of water and also most of the coldest
| parts of the world when surfaced.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Maybe the ultimate "stupidity" is for someone to pass judgment on
| testing requirements without any real motivation or basis for
| doing so.
|
| Imagine if the doctor in the prison this woman is going to
| decides it is "stupid" to give her decent medical care.
| kova12 wrote:
| Strawman argument. She claims exceptional circumstances. Doctor
| helping inmate is not exceptional by any standard
| alistairSH wrote:
| I don't see that in the linked article (maybe Reader view is
| hiding content?). What exceptional circumstances is she
| claiming?
| Loughla wrote:
| >she thought it was "stupid" that the Navy required the
| tests to be conducted at -100F (-70C)
|
| I don't see that as extraordinary (with literally ZERO
| knowledge of subs or arctic conditions). According to
| wikipedia, the lowest recorded temperature is -90.4degF /
| -68degC.
|
| It seems reasonable for something being built to last
| generations in hostile conditions to want to be a little
| better than our recorded 'worst case', right?
| tyingq wrote:
| That is an outside air temp though, where the hull isn't
| under pressure. Seawater wouldn't be much lower than 0C.
| Maybe something about contraction after surfacing?
| zamadatix wrote:
| > According to wikipedia, the lowest recorded temperature
| is -90.4degF / -68degC.
|
| According to which part exactly? https://en.m.wikipedia.o
| rg/wiki/Lowest_temperature_recorded_...
|
| Regardless I doubt the test specifications came from a
| Wikipedia search for "coldest weather" rather than some
| sort of stress event with desired error bars so refuting
| it with such a search seems foolish, not the test.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Yeah, that doesn't sound exceptional in any way. Whether
| or not the Navy's spec was overly cautious wasn't her
| decision to make. She defrauded the government and
| potentially put sailors at risk.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| No "exceptional circumstances" were put forth by her defense.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| Doctors do that kind of thing all the time.
| gorbachev wrote:
| ...especially prison doctors.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Doctors get sued and lose their license in some cases too.
| arielweisberg wrote:
| Doctors (and nurses) get sued for tiny fraction of their
| blatantly wrong decisions that cause real harm. Take it
| from someone whose wife had a stroke at 35 and the triage
| nurse decided it wasn't worth her seeing a doctor or
| treating with TPA because they didn't bother to find out
| when the stroke occurred.
|
| They write the history and it is your word against theirs.
|
| This is an industry where insurance fraud is business as
| usual. They are excellent liars.
| kingcharles wrote:
| As someone who has been to jail, would be surprised to find any
| prison doctor who gives decent medical care.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| What makes you confident she had no basis?
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| I'm not. I'm just pointing out how "stupid" her defense was.
| postalrat wrote:
| Does a day go by when a doctor preforms every test that may be
| recommended somewhere?
| tbihl wrote:
| Or to take this in a sane direction, does a day go by when a
| doctor actually gives you the care and tests and advice you
| need rather than the CYA version?
| ahi wrote:
| I am curious how this story ended up at the BBC. The company
| settled for $11m over a 30 year fraud. I would be surprised if
| this was more than an ancillary supplier. Note the wording: they
| "supplied steel castings used by Navy contractors to make
| submarine hulls".
|
| I haven't followed the row closely, but I wonder if this isn't a
| clever story placement by the French:
| https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/french-ambassador-accus...
| donarb wrote:
| The story comes from the Associated Press who wrote the article
| following the announcement that the metallurgist plead guilty
| in a court the previous day. The BBC has stories from all
| corners of the globe, unlike our major media who only print
| foreign stories if it has an American angle to it.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| "Ms Thomas suggested that in some cases she gave metal positive
| results because she thought it was "stupid" that the Navy
| required the tests to be conducted at -100F (-70C)" - was she
| right, or was there a sound rationale for this?
| smitty1e wrote:
| In general, testing systems outside of their normal operational
| profile is a risk mitigator. Because that black swan event can
| happen.
|
| Also, there are lives ate stake--not just reputations.
| lumost wrote:
| It's a submarine, -70C means it's been frozen into a colder
| iceberg than exists on this planet.
|
| I am curious if this is a mitigation for repeated stress
| cycles or an analogue of metallurgical properties in deep
| ocean water.
| detaro wrote:
| ... or it's sitting at the surface at a very cold place.
| (yes, it obviously won't completely cool down to that
| temperature, but is exposed to temperatures at least close
| to it)
| myself248 wrote:
| My assumption is that very cold temperature conditions
| may be a proxy for some other set of conditions which are
| classified. Do cold temperatures mimic something like
| neutron bombardment, in a way that would be
| metallurgically useful?
| tbihl wrote:
| The short version is, no, there is almost no chance that
| this is related to anything exposed to a relevant
| radiation flux.
| [deleted]
| InitialLastName wrote:
| The Navy has a mandate to operate their subs anywhere on earth.
| Global lowest temperatures on record are around -90C, with the
| lows (in [0]) outside of Antarctica still hitting -68C. Being
| in the ocean will mediate some of those lows, but there's still
| the potential for exposure to very low temperatures on the
| surface.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowest_temperature_recorded_on...
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Having worked for a test lab, I can say that she should have
| just followed the test procedure.
|
| At the same time, we don't know her qualifications other than
| that she is a 'metallurgist'. We do know that the Navy assessed
| no impact in the end. Maybe she used her knowledge of
| metallurgy to determine that the 'stupid' requirement was not
| needed, and maybe she was right. But she obviously handled it
| the wrong way.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| Perhaps the flow of water or air nearby could lower the
| temperature? Maybe pressure changes? Maybe coolant systems next
| to or integrated into the part? Hers was not to reason why...
| MisterTea wrote:
| I was talking to an engineer from Raytheon about a project and
| one thing came up I found interesting. When a system is
| developed the prototypes are built using lab conditions meaning
| very tight tolerances often coupled with equally ridiculous
| tests. This ensures the thing works reliably in any situation
| it might encounter and possibly beyond. Once you have a working
| prototype then the manufacturing design phase begins where you
| then look to relax the stringent lab standards. This means
| lower tolerances that still allow the thing to be reliable
| while now making it more easily manufactured at volume.
|
| BUT That isn't always the case because of deadlines and and
| some parts or the entire project never move past lab spec and
| retain insane tolerances. So yes, sometimes tests are "stupid"
| but that doesn't mean you ignore them and lie because of
| "feelings".
|
| In the case presented here I think the accused wasn't very
| forward thinking. She only thought of the sub as a purely water
| born ship but fact is they operate both at and below the
| surface. They also need to operate near the earths poles where
| they might surface for hours exposing the hull to temperatures
| damn near -100F.
| scarmig wrote:
| The sound rationale for the tests to be conducted at -100F is
| that the Navy contracted for the tests to be conducted at
| -100F.
|
| If someone, and particularly a military organization, asks that
| something be tested according to a certain spec, then you do
| it. Who's to say the steel was even actually being used for
| submarines?
| cesis wrote:
| -70C can be expected in Arctic.
| tantalor wrote:
| Not in sea water:
|
| > Deep ocean water has a very uniform temperature, around 0-3
| degC
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ocean_water
| comrh wrote:
| Subs come to the surface though.
| dageshi wrote:
| If it's on the surface for an extended period of time,
| presumably upper elements of the hull could reach that
| temp?
| jandrese wrote:
| Possible, but that is also the time when the hull is
| under the least amount of stress.
|
| So maybe they are worried about sitting on the surface of
| the Arctic in the dead of winter for an extended period
| of time and then crash diving?
| jhgb wrote:
| Even exposed portions of the hull can be expected to not
| reach equilibrium with surface air. There will still be
| liquid water splashing around and also conduction from
| the warmer parts of the hull. Maybe the sail surface
| could get much colder but I doubt that it's subject to
| impact hazard under these conditions.
| Loughla wrote:
| >was she right, or was there a sound rationale for this?
|
| It literally doesn't matter. You've been hired to do a job, or
| contracted to do a job. You decide _on the front end_ whether
| it is a job you can perform or not. Not once the contract is
| signed.
|
| Or, you use official channels to express your disagreement with
| the requirement and up the price by whatever it needs to be
| upped by.
|
| You don't make arbitrary changes to expectations based on your
| gut feeling without telling anyone. That's called fraud at
| worst, and just plain dumb at best.
| gnu8 wrote:
| I'm curious about the requirement too but I agree that it
| doesn't matter. The client wants their steel tested at -100
| deg F, so do it. Someone who is a Director of Metallurgy
| should take pride in delivering the product that was asked
| for, not in think they know better than the Navy.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| If it results in some one death, it could be considered
| manslaughter.
| PhaseLockk wrote:
| I have no idea if there are systems on a submarine that might
| experience extreme temperatures. But for the hull, since it is
| constantly surrounded by liquid water, I would expect that it
| does not regularly experience temperatures less than ~0C. Maybe
| there's a concern when surfacing in the arctic? That said she
| obviously shouldn't have faked data whether it was stupid or
| not.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Would you want your unit test to not run because it thinks
| "there's no way this code could be broken"?
|
| Whether it's stupid or not is not her call to make.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| This is how we get user-facing error dialogs with the text
| "This error will never happen!"
| [deleted]
| bocklund wrote:
| Steels can undergo a transition to becoming brittle when they
| get cold (called a "ductile-to-brittle" transition). It's
| important to know what the properties would be like in this
| regime and -70C is enough to get there (even 0C can be enough,
| depending on the alloy).
|
| The reason this person may have thought the -70C test eqs
| stupid is because a sub will never be working in conditions
| much colder than the freezing temperature of water (which is
| not strongly pressure dependent, btw), since the water would
| want to freeze - not good for the boat.
| mikewarot wrote:
| I think back to VW and the faked diesel test results... and
| strongly suspect that this is yet another case of trying to pin
| something, that was sponsored/supported higher up in the food
| chain, on the low person on the totem pole.
| [deleted]
| alksjdalkj wrote:
| It seems like she just skipped the test because it made her job
| easier. I feel like most of us have probably taken shortcuts
| before and justified it after the fact with "well it wasn't
| really necessary anyway"
| capableweb wrote:
| I know that if I was producing materials for the
| government/army, I'd stay way clear of anyone willing to cheat
| checklists. Not only can people die, but you'll get sued to
| oblivion as well as the government will make an example out of
| you so others don't screw them in the future.
| zz865 wrote:
| Has anyone here worked in a big bureaucratic organization where
| you have to approve stuff? I get this every day, sometimes I have
| to "check" a list of 15,000 users to make sure they are correct
| then sign off. How many times have you given a big document to
| sign without reading most of it. We wont even talk about online
| "accept conditions" on sites.
| tokai wrote:
| Sounds like you should do your job properly CeeCee. But it
| isn't really comparable to sign off on the material that will
| incase hundreds of men under the sea.
| wpietri wrote:
| Nah, because in the circumstances zz865 describes, taking the
| time to do the work right would get people mad at you. They
| don't actually want the work done. They want someone to _say_
| that the work was done so that blame won 't fall on the
| higher-ups.
| toss1 wrote:
| No, as someone who actually produces parts under DOD
| contracts, they really _DO_ want the work done. Corrolary
| to Gen. Patton 's statement, they are not in the business
| of getting our sailors to give their lives for our country,
| they are in the business of getting the enemy sailors to
| give their lives for their country.
|
| I can also say that there are a range of engineering specs,
| and some are absolutely critical and some are just
| specified out of habit. It _IS_ our job to communicate with
| the customer (whether DOD or prime contractor) and
| determine which is which, and charge appropriately.
|
| I.e., if there is some spec that will cost a lot to build
| into the component and there is a more efficient or cost-
| effective way to get sufficiently similar results, then we
| should (and do) propose that change, and if they say "OK",
| get it in writing, and if they say "nope, we really need
| that feature as spec'd", then charge properly for it and
| make damn sure it is done and documented. Plus, get all the
| exchanges in writing, it doesn't always have to be formal
| proposals & change orders, often just email is fine.
|
| I'd say that the vast majority of the time when something
| creates a production problem, or some subcomponent,
| coating, etc. is unavailable (like one time a handful of
| component X was now out of production and the new minimum
| order quantity was like 20K parts, so a line item that
| should have been maybe $50 would now be $25K+), a quick
| discussion will usually resolve issue, such as "yes, it's
| ok to increase the radius there", "yes that other
| component/coating is an acceptable substitute" or "what do
| you recommend as a substitute?". But there are those times
| where the answer is "we really need it with those crazy
| tolerances to mate to this other component".
|
| So, yes, unless you have some direct evidence of the CYA
| behavior you describe, I'd strongly recommend against
| treating it as you suggest.
| wpietri wrote:
| Just to be clear, I was talking specifically about "the
| circumstances zz865 describes", meaning generic large
| bureaucratic organizations. I meant that as
| distinguishing it from the circumstances of the original
| article, but I should have been more clear. I entirely
| believe there are situations like you describe where the
| checks are both necessary and properly funded.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yes, tho for the metal they really needed the test, IDK
| about the bureaucracy "check these 15K users".
|
| On that indefinite user list, but without knowing for
| sure the purpose of the checks, I'd strongly avoid
| putting my name on that document. Are we just checking
| that the approximate totals seem to match the org size,
| or are we after specific checks for hostile fake or
| obsolete accounts? I sure don't want my sig on the
| document stating that I made checks X, Y, & Z for
| fake/obsolete accts when I hadn't, and we get hacked next
| week.
|
| I.e., if it is 'just bureaucracy' and they don't actually
| care about the result, then likely someone is trying to
| get _your_ neck in the noose when the sht hits the
| proverbial fan.
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