Metal certification falsified in Japan

I respectfully suggest you read what I wrote. Testing a batch of stay bars is of course daft. Im saying take an offcut, in the above example, of the large sheet of cooper for a boiler repair, with which to make tensile test specimens. Which look like the below. Which im sure you know.

Whoever suggested universities, thats a great call. They could provide tensile test specs, and possibly chemical analysis. The latter being the tougher to obtain. We did tensile testing in first year at uni, its a fundamental skill. On that topic, building links between heritage railways and university engineering departments would be good too.

I cant talk too much on the legalities, but I worked for companies who dont settle invoices for bad material. Admittedly, this was oil and gas, with an internal legal counsel at hand. That company has now set up its own in house testing fully accredited to ASME/BS EN.

Anyway, back on topic. This is a potential huge issue for heritage railways, and my general argument is that these railways possess the intelectual and physical capital to fairly easily overcome it.

Its heartbreaking to think a group of people spend a decade or more saving a fund to overhaul a loco, only to have victory snatched from them by some shyster unscrupluous metals dealer.

I feel that given all the above, it would be inadvisable to ignore the evidence, and to build in some capacity, external or internal, to start in house/domestic verification. Its a little outlay for a lot of peace of mind, and in this engineers opinion, worth every penny.

 

Wouldn't it be more conventional to test a sample number of bars from each batch rather than every individual one?

 

Whilst I have great sympathy for any heritage locomotive that is affected by such material indiscretions, I am reminded that over the last decade I have been querying the quality of metal used by foreign suppliers - especially in regard to boiler / superheater tubes which seemed to fail too early for "normal" wear and tear. I have been criticised for my continued suggestion that steel quality was a problem hence am now pleased to note that (a) my suspicions re quality have been confirmed and (b) locomotive owners are now less confident re paperwork and are prepared to undertake a greater measure of inspection. As noted above it is scandalous that locomotive owners spend years restoring their locomotives to working order only to find that material quality causes breakdown and further expense to what is an already expensive activity.

 

As above, the law gives limited recourse, so testing yourslef, or through a third party, gives you the recourse not to settle the invoice as what has been supplied is not what is specified. Faulty goods etc.

 

The issue remains that the impact of poor supplies goes beyond the direct cost of the materials, and preservationists are unlikely to be able to persuade those they buy from to stand the consequential losses that are the real impact.


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As far as boiler tubes were concerned this was discussed a few months back in this link:-

http://www.tractiontalkforum.com/showthread.php?t=40441

 

That reminds me of a Colin Chapman warranty story...

Noel

 

Looking at The Works forum, Ian Riley has purchased a Niton analyser to check the grade of copper purchased for boiler work. Apparently one batch of C107 was the grade of copper for electrical conductors....

Tensile testing was taught at Technical Colleges in the 1970's on OND engineering and technology courses. Not only were you taught to tensile test the samples, you had to machine the samples correctly as well. There is probably more chance of getting testing done by your local tech who does engineering than the few universities who have mechanical engineering courses.

Cheers, Neil

 

"Apparently one batch of C107 was the grade of copper for electrical conductors...."

Out of interest, was that stay bar, or plate?

 

C107 bar for stays.

How much copper (plate or bar) has been used which was fraudulently certified? More worryingly, will we ever find out unless there is a major failure?

 

Didn't the guys at Llan have to replace a load of substandard copper stays on 80072 not long after fitting them? Maybe 2-2 1/2 yrs ago.
Ray.

 

Doesn't surprise me in the least. Some of that garbage, especially the bulk of what the Chinese have output in recent years, doesn't hold a candle to the high-quality steel that comes out of Port Talbot.

What holds our steel industry back are these absurd fantasy CO2 targets, green taxes, EU import/exports levies. Sheesh, it's all politics, not economics.

 

This is neither the thread nor the forum for an in depth debate on the rights and wrongs of environmental policy, but I really can't let Tuska's post go unanswered.

I'd point out that the vast bulk of greenhouse emissions in steel production are the direct result of using fossil fuelled energy to power the process. Replace that with sustainably produced energy, et voilà ..... end of problem. CO2 targets may be difficult, the more so with intrenched vested interests refusing to look beyond their own short term pecuniary gain (and guess who have the biggest influence on government thinking in most countries), but when it comes to reams of published hard scientific evidence (which all can study for themselves) vs the self serving propaganda of the money men (backed up only by nebulous obfuscations), I know who I tend to disbelieve.

Singling out the EU with regard to import/export levies (let alone internationally agreed emission limits) ignores a far wider issue. Last time I looked, the administration over the pond was heading down a protectionist route, indeed much of the last election campaign was predicated on just that. Trade barriers have been pretty much always been a fact of life everywhere, within the EU having been one of the easier areas to trade. During our imperial days, the UK was scarcely innocent in this regard, with our overseas possessions just marginally less discriminated against than 'rebel colonies' and 'outright foreign climes'.

@Dag Bonnedal has previously commented that our beloved steam locos would be seen to be as socially acceptable in Scandanavia as vomiting at the dinner table - here or there (OK.... he didn't couch it in quite those terms, but you get the gist!). Coal fired locos are living on borrowed time as it is, suggestions that the underlying issues are soluble by ignoring them is unrealistic. Suggesting extending the slack our heritage sector still enjoys to a full blooded return to coal power goes much further. Put simply, history shouldn't die with our generations, but if we head back down that path, it pretty damned soon will do.

Economics is emphatically not the be all and end all of our existence. When it comes to environmental matters, to describe it, as practised under current 'free market capitalism', as having a few short comings is rather more than an understatement. Economics is a tool, not a set of sacred commandments carved in stone. This isn't to say, over the longer term, economics can't be developed to truly serve humanity, but doesn't hide the unpalatable truth that if it doesn't start to live up to the responsibilities which come with the importance placed on it, the longer term isn't going to be as long as some think.

Heads out of the sand, folks.

 

What a load of nonsense 30854. First off, you could have PMed me, rather than drag this out into the open. I didn't think the "climate change cult" had gotten so bad and unchecked it had spread here too. But that's what happens when people accept a source of information as fact, without exercising any critical thinking.

Now do listen. You need coal to make steel. No coal via the coking process, means no alloy commonly known as steel. You can never ever have a "green" method of steelmaking, now recycling the crap from China, is a different subject altogether.

I speak on good authority. Father made 5 million tons of the damn stuff during his working life.

EU has not properly looked after the steel industry at all. It has mothballed sites across Italy alone in the wake of these supposed targets that do not apply to America or China, any country that disagrees gets heavily fined or sanctioned. Heck, Port Talbot is still taking Spanish steelmakers to EU courts over corporate sabotage in deliberately ordering thousands upon thousands of miles of rail, that they apparently had no intention of paying. They simply wanted to cripple the steel making industry in the UK. The bill last stood at £300 million last I saw it (I'll be damned if I can find the article now as this was going back to the mid-2000s) And it gets worse:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/another-betrayal-britains-steel-new-7229412

Hard scientific evidence indeed? We don't even need to look at the "peerless-review" (because its not peer-review I can assure you) figures from the laughing joking IPCC - we start with the academics. Falsify it then. Demonstrate the difference between man-made climate change and naturally occurring climate change.

You will soon find out, you can't. And if you cannot apply falsifiability or refutability to climate change, guess what? Its not a theory or working model to help us understand or predict reality. Its a dead unfunny hypothesis Thatcher revived for justification to close down the mines, and ultimately cripple the miner's unions that challenged government once too often. A witch hunt.

 

It's not "the climate change cult", it's called science.

What always amuses me as that whilst it's still reasonably easy to deny climate change because of the complex nature of our climate, the same people try and deny that we're running out of all the stuff that produces greenhouse gases anyway. This alone makes it worthwhile investing in renewable energy, never mind the environmental considerations!

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You do appreciate consensus can be corrupted by those with a political motive and money-making agenda? Green taxes, you'll find, are very profitable for bureaucrats.

Man cannot influence the climate, no more than he can stop a hurricane. The Sun and Earth's volcanicity are the driving forces. Not the "ants" on its surface.

Were your assertions remotely true, we would have the technology to terraform Mars or Venus. We don't.

 

https://xkcd.com/1732/

Yep, no effect whatsoever...

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flying scotsman123, yeah no, don't do that again, you corrupted the forum for me, whenever I was trying to type a response, the reply box kept jumping all over the place.

Appreciate you're on G4 but dumping a huge ass image from xkcd.com is neither evidence, nor a polite response.

 

Apologies, it is quite a long image, but it does give a good depiction. I shall edit my original post with a URL link instead, do look at it if you couldn't before.

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It worries me though, what if we reduce all these emissions of damaging pollution leaving a cleaner environment for our children and then it turns out climate change is a myth and we have done it all for nothing....