NASA Chair Accident Investigation Board (CAIB)

In sci.space.history Pat Flannery wrote:
No, this is not an article from The Onion; this is for real:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011...-2011-0045.pdf
NASA does a in-depth failure analysis of why a 17-year-old office chair
broke, including lots of photos of the failed areas and a
photomicrograph of the interior crystalline structure of the tack welds,
showing how substandard they were.
Conclusion: Bad welding style choices combined with metal fatigue from
the repeated stresses of people sitting in it finally broke the chair.
Luckily, this was caught before any astronauts died, but these failure
modes should be addressed in any post-Shuttle-program office chairs
purchased by NASA. :-D

Well, if you aren't going to be flying anything for a while, it is at
least a way to keep one's analysis skills from dulling completely. Or
perhaps it was a task given to a new guy as part of training.

rick jones
--
I don't interest myself in "why". I think more often in terms of
"when", sometimes "where"; always "how much." - Joubert
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

In article ,
Rick Jones wrote:

In sci.space.history Pat Flannery wrote:
No, this is not an article from The Onion; this is for real:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011...-2011-0045.pdf
NASA does a in-depth failure analysis of why a 17-year-old office chair
broke, including lots of photos of the failed areas and a
photomicrograph of the interior crystalline structure of the tack welds,
showing how substandard they were.
Conclusion: Bad welding style choices combined with metal fatigue from
the repeated stresses of people sitting in it finally broke the chair.
Luckily, this was caught before any astronauts died, but these failure
modes should be addressed in any post-Shuttle-program office chairs
purchased by NASA. :-D

Well, if you aren't going to be flying anything for a while, it is at
least a way to keep one's analysis skills from dulling completely. Or
perhaps it was a task given to a new guy as part of training.

rick jones

I think you are all missing the point here! The whole exercise appears
to have been a simple demonstration of materials science and failure
analysis techniques. It doesn't matter if it was an office chair or a
piece of test material, but it serves an a good demonstration to young
engineers of what failure analysis can achieve.

On 16/07/2011 11:03 AM, Orval Fairbairn wrote:

I think you are all missing the point here! The whole exercise appears
to have been a simple demonstration of materials science and failure
analysis techniques. It doesn't matter if it was an office chair or a
piece of test material, but it serves an a good demonstration to young
engineers of what failure analysis can achieve.

Sadly, it also serves as a reminder of how often we have to throw stuff
out and buy replacements not because an item is genuinely worn out, but
because it wasn't designed/made properly in the first place.

Sylvia.

On Jul 15, 8:25*pm, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 16/07/2011 11:03 AM, Orval Fairbairn wrote:



I think you are all missing the point here! The whole exercise appears
to have been a simple demonstration of materials science and failure
analysis techniques. It doesn't matter if it was an office chair or a
piece of test material, but it serves an a good demonstration to young
engineers of what failure analysis can achieve.

Sadly, it also serves as a reminder of how often we have to throw stuff
out and buy replacements not because an item is genuinely worn out, but
because it wasn't designed/made properly in the first place.

Sylvia.

The new and improved levels of cheapness and dysfunctional aspects or
built-in obsolescence are always amazing to me, in that so few of the
current and next generation has any clue whatsoever as to selecting,
properly utilizing or much less actually caring for anything that's
public funded.

Everything has to look terrific and be all extra shiny and new, as
well as trendy or else it apparently isn't any good.

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On Jul 15, 6:03*pm, Orval Fairbairn wrote:
In article ,
*Rick Jones wrote:









In sci.space.history Pat Flannery wrote:
No, this is not an article from The Onion; this is for real:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2011...-2011-0045.pdf
NASA does a in-depth failure analysis of why a 17-year-old office chair
broke, including lots of photos of the failed areas and a
photomicrograph of the interior crystalline structure of the tack welds,
showing how substandard they were.
Conclusion: Bad welding style choices combined with metal fatigue from
the repeated stresses of people sitting in it finally broke the chair..
Luckily, this was caught before any astronauts died, but these failure
modes should be addressed in any post-Shuttle-program office chairs
purchased by NASA. :-D

Well, if you aren't going to be flying anything for a while, it is at
least a way to keep one's analysis skills from dulling completely. *Or
perhaps it was a task given to a new guy as part of training.

rick jones

I think you are all missing the point here! The whole exercise appears
to have been a simple demonstration of materials science and failure
analysis techniques. It doesn't matter if it was an office chair or a
piece of test material, but it serves an a good demonstration to young
engineers of what failure analysis can achieve.

Which most should have had established their expertise before getting
out of high school, or at least from whatever higher education that
the job required in the first place.

Now if we're talking about on-the-job training which apparently 99.9%
of government employees seem to require nowadays, that's a different
matter if they're only getting paid minimum wage without any benefits
whatsoever, because they're in remedial training to do what they were
supposed to be already qualified for.

http://www.wanttoknow.info/
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Brad Guth, Brad_Guth, Brad.Guth, BradGuth, BG / “Guth Usenet”