Eyimofe Blessing-Kayode
001248133
O-Rings and the Challenger Disaster Introduction
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that deals with the construction, designing and manipulation of machines. In this profession, precision is key and it is often compulsory for every detail to be flawless. In negligence of these precisions fatal and tremendous disasters can occur. An ideal illustration of this is the explosion of the ‘Challenger spacecraft’ in 1986, a few minutes after take-off, due to the use of an erroneously sized safety part. The part was 0.065 inches bigger than required for the spacecraft. This disaster is a significant warning as to why accuracy is very important in Mechanical engineering.
Background
The launch of the Challenger Space-Shuttle was postponed numerous times due to unfavourably low temperatures and mechanical errors. On Tuesday, January 28th, 1986 at 11:38 am the space shuttle was launched. It wasn’t long after take-off that the devastating event of the day began.
Summary
0.06 milliseconds after lift-off, darkish-grey puffs of smoke began discharging from the right solid-fuel rocket booster. These dark puffs of smoke were hot gases of up to 6,000 °F emanating through …show more content…
58.7 seconds into the flight, hot gases began leaking from the right solid rocket booster; at this point, the propellant had been leaking for some time. The chamber pressures were different at each booster a minute into the flight because the right chamber had a lower pressure. NASA knew something was very wrong as there was an intensifying leakage in the field joint area. Pressure in the left booster of the space shuttle was lowered to cover up for the lower pressure in the tight booster, but unfortunately this didn’t solve the problem. The rocket booster bridged the external fuel tank causing the fire from the thrusters to rush to the back of space
001248133
O-Rings and the Challenger Disaster Introduction
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that deals with the construction, designing and manipulation of machines. In this profession, precision is key and it is often compulsory for every detail to be flawless. In negligence of these precisions fatal and tremendous disasters can occur. An ideal illustration of this is the explosion of the ‘Challenger spacecraft’ in 1986, a few minutes after take-off, due to the use of an erroneously sized safety part. The part was 0.065 inches bigger than required for the spacecraft. This disaster is a significant warning as to why accuracy is very important in Mechanical engineering.
Background
The launch of the Challenger Space-Shuttle was postponed numerous times due to unfavourably low temperatures and mechanical errors. On Tuesday, January 28th, 1986 at 11:38 am the space shuttle was launched. It wasn’t long after take-off that the devastating event of the day began.
Summary
0.06 milliseconds after lift-off, darkish-grey puffs of smoke began discharging from the right solid-fuel rocket booster. These dark puffs of smoke were hot gases of up to 6,000 °F emanating through …show more content…
58.7 seconds into the flight, hot gases began leaking from the right solid rocket booster; at this point, the propellant had been leaking for some time. The chamber pressures were different at each booster a minute into the flight because the right chamber had a lower pressure. NASA knew something was very wrong as there was an intensifying leakage in the field joint area. Pressure in the left booster of the space shuttle was lowered to cover up for the lower pressure in the tight booster, but unfortunately this didn’t solve the problem. The rocket booster bridged the external fuel tank causing the fire from the thrusters to rush to the back of space