A swivel office chair failed while in use causing injury. ACS engineers studied the damage to the chair and found that it had separated between the seat support assembly and the supporting pedestal. Inspection of the insert portion of the seat support assembly showed that the failure occurred on the bottom side of the insert’s … More From the Archives: Chair Failure
A residence in the Gulf Coastal Plain’s Quaternary deposits of sand- and clay-rich soil experienced a variety of structural damages including plasterboard fractures, mortar separation, bulging windows, and foundation fractures. Examination of the upper structure damage, the foundation, and the soil was undertaken. The western portion of the residence was less damaged than the eastern, … More From the Archives: Foundation Damage
Recently, Colonel Hanavan wrote a series of volumes on the C-7A Caribou in Vietnam. First Lieutenant Jensen (at the time) worked in safety as well as piloting cargo. His service included being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Assigned to investigate a residence fire, the effort was made to determine if an active appliance caused the fire. Electrical components of the residence consisted of the circuit breaker panel, the electrical wiring in a pile of debris, and an air handling unit. The circuit breaker panel showed no evidence of malfunction. The appliances formerly … More From the Archives: Indeterminate Fire
A tractor operator was injured in the groin area when the machine’s seat clamps failed, releasing the seat. The seat was improperly installed using single bolted electrical straps (image below). The tractor was operated for a significant amount of time with this hazard, long enough for the electrical straps to rust. New electrical straps were … More From the Archives: Seat Installation Failure
Dr. Jensen recently published a ground-breaking research article in Astrophysical Journal, “Plasma Interactions with the Space Environment in the Acceleration Region: Indications of CME-trailing Reconnection Regions”. Read More!
When prosecutors present the results of a piece of evidence analyzed in the lab, a question often comes up: how good is the measurement? It’s an important one to ask, because the error bars tell you how good the measurement is. If a Breathalyzer measurement was collected by police, and the result was near the … More Erroneous Drug Quantity Measurements using Uncalibrated FTIR/ATR Instruments
Dr. Elizabeth Jensen’s presentation to the American Society of Safety Engineers (soon to be Safety Professionals) Energy Corridor meeting is linked below. Practical Cybersecurity: Where You Fit into the Big Picture
The combustion engine relies on its coolant system to function properly. When it doesn’t, the cylinder head can crack due to heat stress, the differential thermal expansion of metal. Naturally, the fracture occurs between the hot area (combustion exhaust) and cold areas of the cylinder. When the metal cracks between these two areas, coolant can … More Cracked Head (Cylinder Head Fracturing)
Being that humans are creatures of habit, an uneven stairwell challenges users, even those grown familiar with asymmetries in construction. The most critical components of a stairwell to avoid becoming a tripping or slipping hazard include a decent (and uniform) tread and riser value. In the case of International Building Code specifications, this is 11 … More Stairwells and the Codes
