The 'Best' Engineering Lost Causes

Tacoma Narrows Bridge comes to mind. Or how about the Titanic! Two major faux pas.

the bridge also immediately came to mind, nut the Titanic was an engineering marvel that was operated to fast in dangerous waters, human error is why it went to Davey Jones locker.

The lookouts had no binoculars. And it was at night and the ship was going too fast for conditions.

Not to mention the rudder was under sized for the size of the ship, as well as the water tight compartments were open on top. It was water tight until the water level reached the opening on the top. This I just don't understand.

If the engineer would have sealed the bulkheads it would have been compartmentalized to a survivable level. IF the engineering would not have failed it.

in their day, it was the marketing rage to claim speed on a trans Atlantic passage, the owners of Titanic wanted that record and sped into an ice feild

• Brunel's Atmospheric Railway has to be on the list.
• The use of gas turbines for railway locomotive propulsion?
• "Novelty" and "Cycloped", two self-propelled vehicles that appeared at the Rainhill Trials of 1829.
• The early years of powered flight produced several examples of lost causes.

Sinclair C5:

Might have worked if he'd fitted pedals. Even a windmilll and some solar panels. Hard to believe, but Clive got pocket calculators and home computers into the UK mass market. If only some of his staff had said, 'you might want to rethink on this concept'. Gawd know what Alan Sugar must think.

Not only the UK. My first computer was the ZX80 purchased here in the US. Had a whopping 1K RAM. I expanded to 2K and my thought was "why would you need any more".

I learned BASIC off of this machine and remembering entering the "PONG" program off of a newsletter.

I'd put the DeLorean and the Segway on that list.

Also the 'Geodesic' Dome.

IBM's attempt to correct the fiasco that was the ISA bus, Micro Channel.

Two come to mind:

The Shuttle booster rockets attached to the Shuttle Challenger.

The Chauchat Mle 1918. US 30-06 Machine Rifle used during WW1. This piece of crap cost a lot of lives.

No, that story about the President wanting to make a speech while the shuttle was in orbit is still a myth. It was investigated and shown to be a hoax a long time ago.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11031097/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/myths-about-challenger-shuttle-disaster/

I heard differently on the day of the launch. I have no reason to doubt what I heard.

Just sayin.

The day of the launch?

Yes, the day of the launch!

The report you cite was published well after "the day of the launch" after much manipulation of the "facts" could have occurred.

The system was never tested below 50 F, but the o-rings themselves were rated for lower temperatures. [The rating is not just for temperature but for pressure - a material that is stiff at 32 F is often still compliant when also under pressure.] The problem was that the joint was susceptible to 'rotation', i.e., of opening while under pressure, which reduced the sealing effect. Thiokol knew of this problem and was already working on a 'fix' (the one later used in the re-design) to change the flange/tang.

As we all know the engineers' concerns about the cold operation wrt to the o-rings and the 'rotation' problem were not passed on.

The real failure was in management.

if you recall....long before the Rogers commission even concluded their investigation and prior to the release of that report, contractors were suggesting "fixes" to the design, which infuriated the investigation team

Yes, but..........................

There's hardness of the material and no doubt fluoroelastomers remain more compliant than some other materials at low temperatures. I'm not sure how close to the Tg the O-rings were at launch, but they would have been colder than ambient air temperature, and stiffer.

There's also thermal expansion and contraction (in this case) of these materials and it is relatively high.

So, you've got a reduction in compliance due to temperature, a contraction of the O-ring in diameter due to shrinkage, but also a reduction in cross section due to shrinkage along the length of the O-ring around the diameter (12 feet) of the O-ring gland.

My recollection is that the O-ring was at 28F at launch. Shrinkage is figured as inches, per inch, per degree F.

Starting with the cure temperature, where physical properties and dimensions of the O-ring are set and going down to 28 degrees, leaves us with a considerable amount of shrinkage to consider.

Just some thoughts.

"As we all know the engineers' concerns about the cold operation wrt to the o-rings and the 'rotation' problem were not passed on."

I don't think we all know this, either.

a little off topic on seals, .... A harder durometer rubber seal seals better than a softer one..., but not too hard that it doesn't form, found that out by R&D designing hatches for navy prototype SOC

The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse, and lest we forget Apollo 1's calamity on the pad and Apollo 13's ill fated mission.

The Imperial System. Let's go Metric.

That's is the best one so far.

Going Metric might have saved the shuttle also, because perhaps some thought the O-rings would be OK at 28° but no one would consider launching them at -16°. LOL!

Not to mention the Mars Climate Orbiter that NASA lost due to not understanding which unit of measurement were used.

The list I'm sure is long. It does suck when you work on a piece of equipment, and you round off a fastener to realize you should of also brought the other (Standard or metric which ever you didn't bring) set of wrenches.

I like the Quebec Bridge collapse in 1907. How many times did we all work statics problems where we were told to "ignore the weight of the structural members"?

"ignore the weight of the structural members"?

Always...... I couldn't understand that, In my Statics and Strength of Materials class I took in College that was common to do.

They did use another term for it though making it sound insignificant.

I couldn't understand that

Why is that difficult to understand?

In most low level engineering courses it's common to assume away many things that make the problems more complicated. The purpose is to keep the problem simple enough for the students to grasp the concepts being taught. Later on, we are taught about stress concentration factors, frictional effects, and other non-linear or complicity driving factors. It's common to start off with two dimensional problems prior to moving on to 3 dimensions.

The problem is that many engineers only seem to want to apply the simplified solutions, not do the detailed analysis that they should have learned in the junior or senior level courses.

Thanks for the catch, at the time it was never fully explained, and when pressed it was blown off,...... probably because they go through it every year.

And talking about detailed engineering, What fascinated or more closely impressed me was Eiffel's design and concerns about the Eiffel tower, especially with the wind loading.

or -2.22° even....oops, see what I mean.

Boston's BIG DIG

"The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the U.S. and was plagued by escalating costs, scheduling overruns, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests,^[2]^[3] and one death."

It's great to have it now, I have a clear shot to Logan Airport.

So what if it leaks (alot), and the roof panels fall and kill people once in a while.

Technically, it was the Edsel made by the Edsel division of Ford Motor Co.

Just in automotive, you could look at the Corvair, Vega, Pinto, Cadillac "4-8" engine of the early '80s, just to name a few.

Some on this forum would include Cavaliers. They turn up on a regular basis here not running.

Nuclear Based Aircraft Propulsion...

Why not just make sure we spread that nasty stuff all over the place.

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