Fourth in a Series of Articles for LinkedIn

Tankage Photo by Navintar - Designed by Freepik

The Rest of the Story - The Exploding Tank Paradox

Published on July 15, 2019
Michael A Eastman
Senior Technologist - System Integration Design Development, Analysis, Configuration Data Management, Application Development

Usually the HR interviewer will ask what was a problem that needed to be solved and how did you apply your skills to that end.   This is another article in the continuing series 'The Rest of the Story' that goes further back into my history as a young contract engineer and deals with how I solved a problem with a chemical tank farm that exploded.

In my reading of other publishers on interviews and what the interviewer is looking for, I came across an article by Lou Adler dated February 20, 2014: How to Blow an Interview. In it he indicated that "How You Answer and Ask Questions Will Determine if You Get the Job." He continues with the real process, "...candidates aren’t judged on how well they do their jobs; they’re judged on how well they describe how they do their jobs." Furthermore he adds - "there were a few points to note that all interviewers are attempting to evaluate the following:"

• How skilled you are and how you applied these skills on the job
• If what you've accomplished is comparable to what needs to be accomplished
• How you’d fit with the team, work well with the hiring manager, and fit with the company “culture”
• Your level of drive, initiative, and motivation
• Your upside "potential"

For more of his article and many more please go to Lou Adler's LinkedIn profile. To answer each of the points that he outlined above I started my process for telling the stories of my achievements - Dragon Slaying Stories (per Liz Ryan) or how I accomplished that achievement - The Rest of the Story (per Paul Harvey). I prefer to show a few steps of that process to give people more of an idea of what it took to get a solution.

With that in mind I reach back to my early years when I was working at a Corporate Engineering Division - Chemical Intermediates (CED-CI) in St. Louis about 1974 - 1979.

The titles that this was accomplished under: Consultant Associate conducting Chemical Engineering Research, Chemical Plant Design with drafting of Architectural, Piping, Electrical, Structural and Tankage Farms.

As listed under the accomplishments section: "There was an incident at a chemical intermediates plant and several tanks blew up. My supervisor gave me the specifications on the tanks and the types of chemicals that they were mixing at the time. His instructions were simple, find out what happened and report back to him. I analyzed the mixture ratios and the tank structures and found that they were mixing the solutions too early, creating hot spots on the glass-lined steel tanks. This in turn increased the pressure inside the tanks and at the same time was weakening the structure. I redesigned the tanks and fixed the mixture ratios so that the temperatures did not create a hazardous situation."

The Process:

The first is to verify the basic information that I had. A quick trip to the research library to check out the chemicals being used involved other details that I knew would be needed for the tank design. For the three chemicals I was able to verify the specific gravity, viscosity (roughly defined as a liquid's resistance to flow), surface tension, capillary rise along with pressure/temperature charts. As noted in chemistry, the specific gravity and viscosity changes as the pressure/temperature changes. An example is shown in the following chart:

Next would be the combinations of the three chemical intermediates (Here I will call them A, B and C) that would produce the desired chemical product. There are six total combinations, but only one combination that will provide the results that we are looking for. For this the research library came in useful again. The different interactions between the three were analyzed to find the amount and timing needed for optimum chemical interaction. Luckily, I had access to the Gould Mainframe Computer, a healthy dose of Fortran (Level V) as well as certificates in Disspla (a graphical display language for Fortran). Ternary graphing was used to find the mix needed.

The basic Ternary graphic would look like this:

How to read it:

The other variables in the graphing process involved temperature, percentage of chemical interaction and time. Pressure is held constant where all three have optimum interaction.

Next was the tank design to accomplish what the graphs show. I had a choice between two common diameters of tanks, 6.5 foot or 7.5 foot. I produced a flat of each tank to determine which would give me the room and timing needed. I also produced a flat of what the original design looked like to give me a reference. The 'flats' are produced by taking the geometry of a cylinder and laying it out using the 2πr equation. The 6.5 foot diameter did not give me enough timing for the chemical interaction, so I layed out the flat for the 7.5 foot diameter.

This is the design from the original engineer. He was using a 6.5 foot diameter tank and all the inlets were in a straight line. In this arrangement the chemicals would reach critical temperature within one quarter of a tank circumference. This caused a hot spot that melted thru the glass lining of the tank, then through the steel casing. The pressure would spike which caused a rupture. With the heat, chemicals and oxygen together we have a nice explosion.

The next drawing shows a overhead of the three main inlet piping, 20 inch, 14 inch and 10 inch. I also drew up the dimensions of the tank, the most important would be the interior.

The next drawing is a mashup of the top view and side with the piping to get an idea of the orientation of the structure. Basically a one-off to check my dimensions.

The most important flat would combine all the elements that we have calculated. The Trenary graph gave us the optimum timing and amounts of each chemical intermediate. Chemical A represented by the 20 inch inlet is established at it's 4 foot reference level within the tank. Chemical B represented by the 14 inch inlet is at 2 foot below it's reference level. Chemical C represented by the 10 inch inlet is at 1.9 foot below it's reference point. All are incoming at a minimum of 15 degrees that will give the the timing we need. The staggering of the inlets allow each chemical to mix at the proper timing and distance. Notice that the last inlet, 10 inch is added to the two previous chemicals close to twice the circumferance of the tank as the mix spins around. This chemical when mixed too soon causes the heat reaction.

Upon presenting all my materials to my supervisor, he indicated that I went well beyond what he asked for, and promptly instituted the changes to several plants under construction at that time. He also expressed his surprise that a non-degree'd technical assistant was able to do this when one of his degree'd plant design engineers could not figure it out. He also indicated that I could not be hired on directly as he wanted since I did not have my degree as yet. "Company Policy you know" he said. As a side note, that same plant design engineer was reassigned to produce skiffs – material forklift pallets, and he came over with his assignments and gave them to me to complete for him.

For reading of the original article and others you can go to my LinkedIn Site.

Third in a Series of Articles for LinkedIn

Do you work in code for the job or do you do it for fun? HR would ask the question on this to get a feel on how your technical makeup is. I do it for both. This is another in the series dealing with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Lately changed to add Art, so it becomes (STEAM).

Header picture of color periodic table. Copyright by Michael A. Eastman October 23 2006

The Rest of the Story – A Periodic Table and the HR question “What do you do for fun?”

Published on June 30, 2019
Michael A Eastman
Senior Technologist - System Integration Design Development, Analysis, Configuration Data Management, Application Development

Another item that I had not mentioned in my resume (I really ran out of room, but it will soon be rectified) is the age-old Human Resources question “What do you do for fun?” Among my several hobbies, I have one where I like to work/play with data and to present it in useful forms. This takes me to data access by technology and making it available to others.

One night I was watching my son struggle with his homework from science class on the periodic table. He kept flipping pages back and forth in his book and was getting frustrated. He was a freshman in high school at the time and disliked using the other science books in the same way, looking up information page-by-page. I sat down that night and whipped up an electronic version of the periodic table for him to use. He loved it.

Above is the first rough draft of the Periodic Table. The information would pop-up in a side window.

Above is the raw coding of first draft of Periodic Table.

My next iteration included some new coding for color and a pop-up for the element information.

The new element pop-up with color match to the periodic table - snazzy!

The new HTML code is a little more intense, but workable.

At the next Parent-Teacher Conference, I presented a copy to his science teacher. Loading it from the disk, she was able to click on each element and the data was instantly there, no flipping back and forth or searching for the information. She was stunned and asked, “You did this?”

I also made it configurable to include text, images or combinations with links to expand the data to what was needed in the class at that time. I indicated that it could be updated with some simple programming in HTML or JavaScript. I found out that the high school (even in the 21st Century) did not include any classes on computer programming at that level – for teachers or students. They would have to do it at a college level course like STLCC, where an advanced senior student would spend one day a week in a college level class. My son was a freshman at the time and not even in consideration.

The 'Rest of the Story' did not end there. We took him out of the public school system and enrolled him at the Christian Brothers College High School (CBC) where he was able to get a good education and ultimately received a scholarship to college as a nurse. Currently he is working at a local hospital as a Neuro Intensive Care Unit Nurse (NICU). I'm very, very proud of him.

This is not the first time I have tinkered with HTML code. Another story of a prior event will be presented soon.

Second in a Series of Articles for LinkedIn

Another in the series of "Dragon Slaying"​ Stories that tell the behind the scenes of an accomplishment that I had in my resume.

GE T-700 Engine – Flight Safety Part Program - Army Troop Command (ATCOM) Aviation Acquisition Division (AAD).

Photo from wikipedia.org – General Electric T700 Engine.

The Rest of the Story – Accomplishment T-700 Engine Component Failure Database (ECFD)

Published on June 26, 2019
Michael A Eastman
Senior Technologist - System Integration Design Development, Analysis, Configuration Data Management, Application Development

These stories are aptly named after a series that I listened to many years ago by Paul Harvey. These would dig into past or current events and tell what other media, news outlets or papers do not normally cover. Next up is another “Dragon Slaying” story that actually has a far more reaching affect than I had envisioned.

At about the same time that I was combing through my resume for material for another accomplishment, I came across my sample of a database project that I had done on my own after the Flight Safety Part Update Project (FSPUP). The date registered on my copy is from May 26, 1995.

Again, this story will detail what I listed as a small line or paragraph on the resume. My resume presents this particular position at Army Troop Command (ATCOM) (Consultant Via Camber Corporation) - St. Louis, Missouri    06/1994 - 06/1996.

US Army Aviation Systems Command (AVSCOM) Aviation Acquisition Engineering Division (AAED) in association with Army Program Executive Office (PEO) and Program Management Office (PMO) under Programming and Technical Support (PATS II) Contract.

The titles that this was accomplished under: Senior Engineer/Analyst, System Administrator, and System Data Base Administrator (Secret Clearance – DISCO).

As listed under the accomplishments section: “The U.S. Army had several aircraft in different disciplines that needed upkeep where the initial costs and manpower requirements were too high.  I developed a T-700 Engine Component Failure Database (ECFD) to analyze, repair and re-engineer the efforts on the Army’s air fleet.  This enabled the organization to see where the duplication of efforts was happening, and to reduce costs associated with them.  The analysis revealed which components on the engines were close to failure, resulting in better management of the mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) repair of the parts.  The database also included locations of supply centers vs. aircraft, reducing the amount of time required for delivery of replacement parts.  This database had never existed previously and was duplicated among several branches to help in reducing manpower resources and associated costs.”

Using Microsoft (MS) Access A-SQL/I-SQL coding in these tasks, I was able to develop the database with a small subset of the reports from the Data-Warehousing effort I did on the Windows-for-Workgroups (WFW MS 3.11) Project.  To you these terms for earlier MS products would seem ancient, but to the engineers and programmers they were the latest and greatest that we had to work with. (I may not have mentioned this, but I spent a good part of college using a slide-rule and logarithmic tables to do homework.)

The front end of the program present a series of components that had a good history on MTBF.

Here is a brief explanation of some acronyms used on the program.

• AISBV - Anti-Ice System Bypass Valve
• DECU - Digital Engine Control Unit
• ECU - Electrical Control Unit
• HMU - Hydro Mechanical Unit
• GG - Gas Generator
• P Turbine - Power Turbine

When checking on a particular section of components, for example the Anti-Ice System Bypass Valve (AISBV), we have a list of parts by nomenclature and part number. The Failure Data Summary (FDS) drills down to the cause and corrective action taken with corresponding reports that can be pulled up.

This illustration from Scott Turvey UH-60 slide presentation shows the complexity of the T-700 engine.

When I first put this together I had the Army Helicopters with the Boeing AH-64 Longbow Apache and the many variants of the Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk to work with. As I found out later, this program had many uses with several agencies.

From the GE Aviation Website: “Developed in response to the United States Army’s requirement to deliver added power and improved field maintainability, 20,000 T700/CT7 engines have now surpassed 100 million flight hours in nearly four decades of service. In addition to proving their mettle in the harshest military operating environments imaginable, T700/CT7 engines are the power of choice in 50 countries and 130 customers for transport, medical evacuation, air rescue, special operations and marine patrol. A product of continuous innovation, the story of the T700 will continue unfold as it incorporates advanced components and materials for increased power, reliability and fuel savings.” The newest version is now fighting extreme wildfires with extreme machines. “One weapon in the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s arsenal is the Firehawk, a modified Black Hawk UH-60 helicopter that can carry 1,000 gallons of water and fly near intense fires causing huge temperature swings.

Sikorsky originally developed the chopper for the U.S. Army. But the Firehawk, which is powered by a pair of souped-up T700 GE helicopter engines, has been modified for firefighting, rescue, external lift and medical evacuation.”

This shows the real size of the engine.  Two engines power each Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk variants for the Army, Air Force, Navy and Coast guard, as well as the Army's Boeing AH-64 Longbow Apache.

A final word on development of newer versions of the program and the statements made at the time from friends and co-workers on the project. "How did you do that? We didn't know you knew how to code." HR would also miss this little bit. I used the titles that I was contracted to work with, but on hindsight I could have added "Senior Database Programmer" as well.

3 Comments

Michael Felmey - 1st

A&P Mechanic at Leading Edge Aviation Inc.

That's awesome. I'm sure it had a direct impact on the life limits of turbine components. I also didn't realize SQL predated Windows NT.

T700s are still exceptionally versatile engines used on several airframes across the branches.  I wonder how well Rolls Royce tracked our Allison M250-C30R engines, being they were on consignment to the Army for the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. 

Michael Eastman - 2nd You

Senior Technologist - System Integration Design Development, Analysis, Configuration...

I was using the MS Access A-SQL/I-SQL coding at that time. Simple back then (WFE MS 3.11), but still powerful to use. What really made it work was that all the 486 computers were linked to a 586 NT 4.0 Beta Server that I configured.  I had access to all the reports on all components in the Army's files for my project while there at ATCOM.  I havent't heard of anyone doing a MTBF database for the M250-C30R engines.  I can't imagine that any company would ignore this.  While rummaging around my files, I found an Army Troop Command News - Spotlight article on the subject.

Michael Eastman - 3rd You

Senior Technologist - System Integration Design Development, Analysis, Configuration...

And a few days later my direct manager issued a Memorandum from the Contract Company - Camber Corporation.