The USS Texas was closed for a week in June 2017 after officials noticed that the vessel had tipped to one side. The tilt gradually reached eight degrees as water poured into the ship through various leaks, the largest of which measuring six by eight inches. Efforts to empty the water and patch the holes [...]
When power plants popped up around the coast of Florida, manatees took notice. Most human development caused distress for the species, but power plants offered them refuge in an unusual way. Manatees discovered that they could live and thrive in the canals warmed by hot water discharged by power plants in their quest to find [...]
On July 4, 2017, thirteen people were killed and approximately fifty were injured in a boiler explosion at a Multifab garment factory in Bangladesh's Gazipur district. The blast collapsed the factory's walls and roof. Nearby buildings were also damaged. The cause of the boiler explosion is thought to be improper inspection procedures and the use [...]
In January 2011, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a citation to the Didion Milling Plant in Cambria, Wisconsin for failing to protect their employees against dust explosion hazards. Explosions of this type can occur when grain dust that is confined to tight spaces is ignited by a spark or fire. On [...]
Landmines have been used extensively in conflict zones throughout the world. Though wars may come to a close, subterranean landmines stay active and threaten to kill anyone who walks across the surface above the explosives. The HALO Trust estimates that fifty-eight countries, including Cambodia, Laos, Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan, have undetected landmines buried in the earth. [...]
What has 50,000 spot welds and a mile’s worth of weld seams? The answer is an 85-foot-long train car coach that will soon begin service in Central and South Florida. The car shells are made with 301LN stainless steel and a little ASTM A588 carbon steel. Each of the five colorful trains has two bright [...]
Why inspect tanks? Why indeed. On January 15, 1919, a crowded section of this city was rocked by a massive tidal wave, not of water but of molasses. The spill occurred when a holding tank lost structural integrity and burst. Over two-million gallons of sticky, brown syrup inundated the city’s streets, killed citizens and horses, [...]
The API Inspection Summit was held in Galveston, Texas in January. Along with a variety of inspection sessions and panel discussions, two four-hour workshops were held. The first workshop highlighted AUT, Advanced Ultrasonic Testing, which includes C-Scan, Phased Array, and Time of Flight Diffraction of TOFD. C-Scan can be used for corrosion mapping and flaw [...]
On April 3, 2017, an explosion occurred on the premises of Loy-Lange Box Co., a cardboard box plant in St. Louis, MO. The blast launched a 2,000-pound steam storage tank more than four-hundred feet in the air until it crashed into the roof of a nearby linen factory seconds later. Four people died as a [...]
