Ford's answers to the NHTSA 6.7 Investigation

BenK wrote:


When at the labs and hiring summer interns in prep to weed them out for
hire full time after they graduate...we (my scientists and I) coined
'red light, green light DESIGNERS'....these kids are extremely bright
and well schooled...but...they are so convinced that the CAM simulations
are absolute

Meaning that they (most) will just take it and move onto their next task

See this when visiting their U's and corporations using our stuff.
Worse in the corporations visited, as some engineering management has
a loosey goosey tolerance for the numbers of vectors accepted to pass the review gate

Scary...

You must know this case file:


http://home.versatel.nl/the_sims/rig/sleipnera.htm

This failure mechanism manifested because of several inconsistencies in the initial conditions defined in the design software. The sinking was partially caused by the inappropriate use of finite element (FE) -code NASTRAN with regards to the global analysis of the finalized design: the finite element mesh used to analyze the tri-cells was too coarse to predict the shear stress accurately. The flawed analysis and post-processing of the tri-cell design led to shear forces being underestimated by some 45%.

Another flaw with the use of the software was the human error involved: the design software involved considerable complexity, which led to a a very high perception of precision by those who used it. One of the features of this software was the way it ran calculations: it would only flag certain sections that were deemed critical by the software presets, and indicate those as sections that the engineers on the design team needed to check. The probable failure point of the SLA-1 GBS was not flagged.

http://failures.wikispaces.com/Sleipner+A+-+North+Sea+Oil+Platform+Collapse



Basically, if someone who is experienced took a slide ruler (not a calculator) and hand checked the calculations crudely, the error would have been obvious.