Search the Community

Chapter 16 The steel and aluminum docking port rang as it hit the concrete floor. It deformed and bounced slightly as it crazed the concrete. Amid the shouts Kyler walked calmly over to examine the destroyed prototype. He blew out a long slow breath. He looked up at the other docking port on the crane, slowly swinging overhead. It began to move off to one side. Someone had decided to lower it, before it too fell. As it moved he saw the torn metal on the locking ring. He saw a cylinder fall and bounce with a ring on the floor. He walked over and picked it up as it rolled across the floor. He frowned as he looked at the broken end. One of the engineers walked over to him. “What do you think sir,” Bermy asked. “What was the margin for the locking pins?” “Should have been one hundred percent.” “We’re going to have to adjust that. We’ll probably have to increase the number of pins. We should look at the design as well. Any off axis forces appear to lead to failure.” He handed her the locking pin. “Get that to metallurgy as well as two of the other ones. I want to know why it failed.” “If we increase the number of pins, we’ll have to shift the magnets around. We just got them balanced.” Bermy pursed her lips. “The computers didn’t like the last set of calculations we sent them.” “Most of the heavy lifting for the calculations has already been done. The shape of the fields will be roughly the same, and symmetry will take care of the rest. Besides, if Katherine has a problem with it, she can discuss it with me.” Bermy looked at Kyler, Katherine could be formidable if she chose. They walked over to the docking port that had been lowered from the crane. Kyler looked at the torn metal of the docking port. “Any suggestions,” she asked. Kyler shook his head. “It’s close to what my first guess would have been for a design. So I can’t argue against it, except on the one obvious point. Get samples from around the tears over to metallurgy as well. See if they have recommendations for something stronger.” “Off the shelf, researched, or proposed.” “Shelf and late research. I don’t want to base too much work on something that might not pan out. But, it isn’t a hard exclusion. If they have something promising earlier in the pipes, I’ll listen to it.” “Anything else?” “Yes. We’ll have to find a better way of testing these things. I don’t want to regularly rebuild my floor.”