“Cracks found in the Transbay Terminal superstructure appear to have started at the sharp corners of holes cut into vital steel beams during construction.” The San Francisco transit center opened in late August after 10 years of construction, costing $2.2 billion. And a month later, beams with cracks were found, leading to its closure “out of an abundance of caution.” This is going to be a costly mistake (covered under warranty!) – the transit center isn’t scheduled to re-open until June 2019.
“If you don’t have the time and resources to do things right the first time, how will you find the time and resources to do it over again?” – me.
Read more about these cracks and the efforts to fix them.
-Danny Schaeffler, www.EQSgroup.com and www.Learning4M.com
Transbay Transit Station Weld Cracks
Danny received his Bachelor of Science degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, and a Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Materials Engineering from Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. While at Drexel, Danny held engineering and research positions with the David Taylor Research Center (Annapolis, MD) and Hoeganaes Corporation (Riverton, NJ).
After receiving his Doctorate, Danny started at the LTV Steel Technology Center (Independence, OH), where he was a member of the Customer Technical Center, focused on customer-based problem solving in the areas of corrosion, formability, and surface contaminants. He then transferred into the Automotive Development Group, focused on formability analysis and training; materials selection and optimization; tooling development and production launches for new vehicle programs; customer materials & manufacturing cost reduction efforts; forming/denting/structural computer simulation; and technical awareness and communications with the automotive manufacturers and their Tier One / Tier Two companies. Danny's first position in the ADG was as the engineer responsible for all transplant accounts, and then moved to having responsibility for the Ford Motor account, before being promoted to the Group Manager. During his time with LTV Steel, Danny was active in AISI and Auto/Steel Partnership activities, serving as Chairman of the Standardized Dent Resistance Test Project as well as participating in other committees. Danny is the founding member of Engineering Quality Solutions, Inc.
Danny has over a dozen publications and is a member of ASM International, SAE International, and is a former President of the North American Deep Drawing Research Group (www.NADDRG.org).