Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoiler
LOL... “Chinesium”.
Where I used to work, engineers would design large pressure vessels out of exotic materials that were then too difficult to get many fab shops to quote.
I would have to go into project status meetings and tell people that the actual name of the material was “Unobtainium”, because we apparently couldn’t buy it anywhere.
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Hah I know this game. We had a company come to us and ask for a quote on a welded Niobium shield. A young engineer accepted the job without having it reviewed.
For those who don't know, Niobium is the new hotness in the superconductor world because of the relatively high temperature at which it reaches superconductivity.
It also has a melting point close to the internal temperature of the sun (hyperbole, but super hot) and the design called for differing thicknesses of niobium to be welded together (so they reach welding points at different temperatures). Also it needs to be welded in an inert atmosphere (in this case a plastic bubble filled with Argon). The end result was ugly. Welders couldn't fixture it because by the time the niobium was hot enough to melt to itself, it had already melted the fixtures. Also, they could hardly see what they were welding because the plastic bubble they purchased was a budget item, which meant a rippled and wrinkled surface which the welders could hardly see through even without the welding mask.
Eventually we contacted the would-be purchasers to let them know all attempts had failed and we would flog the engineer who accepted the job as a corrective action.