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Aerospace is all about process and safety so. And hell, Elon almost ruined Tesla with his drive to over-automate manufacturing. Getting to work 100s of suppli

by hef19898 3y ago

Aerospace is all about process and safety so. And hell, Elon almost ruined Tesla with his drive to over-automate manufacturing. Getting to work 100s of suppliers, not all of which are directly managed by the OEM, together is happening all day, every day in all industries building hardware. Seriously, HNs ignorance when it comes to real engineering and manufacturing is really frustrating.

dpflan 3y ago
What would be good resources to learn more about "real engineering and manufacturing" to help educate the community?
- beacon294 3y ago
  Sorry that knowledge is restricted to real engineers. /s
- hef19898 3y ago
  Any book about basic engineering is a good start, 101 course materials. Also, people with a mechanical, electrical, manufacturing, industrial, aerospace or other engineering background. Some of us are also on HN.
chx 3y ago
> Aerospace is all about process and safety so. As an aside, this is so much so the often used phrase "aerospace grade" whatever, especially on Kickstarters is just bull. There's nothing special in the materials, what they are concerned about is the ability to track every piece to where it comes from.
- applied_heat 3y ago
  And be confident it is what it is meant to be, and meet the standards it is meant to meet
  - hef19898 3y ago
    One of the first thing an old hand told me in my first days on the job, in aerospace, was: If you have a part, but have no paper work you can match against the part that tells you what it is, you can throw the part away. So, never loose documentation. I took that to heart. Took a case of a switcheroo, mixing items that looked similar but aren't, to really drive the point home.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Well, some of the materials used are special: aluminium alloys, titanoum alloyw, heat treatment, carbon fibers...
  - zettabomb 3y ago
    They're standard alloys with special process controls. "Aerospace grade" aluminum is commonly just 2024. "Aerospace grade" titanium is often 6Al-4V. What makes them special isn't the alloy at all but things like traceability, continuous monitoring and testing of critical material properties, and supply chain.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      And you are sure about that? Because that would mean I purchased a lot of the wrong raw materials in my life, and if so I really, really should tell my collegues in engineering, procurement and quality control about it.
      - zettabomb 3y ago
        Pretty sure, considering I work in aerospace. Can you name any alloys or materials you've used which are in some way specific to aerospace?
        hef19898 3y ago
        Not anymore, as it is quite a while I bought them. After all, it was just a P/N. Given that we had a full blown lab doing samples for all raw materials we bought to make sure tze alloy, heat treament and other properties were correct, yes, it definetly was different alloys. Quite a few actually. Depends on the actual use case of course: requirements for safety critical parts are higher than for less critical parts, say part connecting rotor blades to the rotor head had higher requirements than the door handle (both which were actual titanium in one case, and please don't ask why a door handle would be titanium to begin with...). Generally so, to come back to your question: I remember three different titanium alloys with different heat treatment we used back then. And at least five different alumium alloys. The Titanium ones were primarily aerospace, and export controlled depending in which form you bought it. And one particular steel alloy, not aerospace specific but also export controlled because it was dual use.

dpflan 3y ago

What would be good resources to learn more about "real engineering and manufacturing" to help educate the community?

beacon294 3y ago
Sorry that knowledge is restricted to real engineers. /s
hef19898 3y ago
Any book about basic engineering is a good start, 101 course materials. Also, people with a mechanical, electrical, manufacturing, industrial, aerospace or other engineering background. Some of us are also on HN.

chx 3y ago

> Aerospace is all about process and safety so. As an aside, this is so much so the often used phrase "aerospace grade" whatever, especially on Kickstarters is just bull. There's nothing special in the materials, what they are concerned about is the ability to track every piece to where it comes from.

applied_heat 3y ago
And be confident it is what it is meant to be, and meet the standards it is meant to meet
- hef19898 3y ago
  One of the first thing an old hand told me in my first days on the job, in aerospace, was: If you have a part, but have no paper work you can match against the part that tells you what it is, you can throw the part away. So, never loose documentation. I took that to heart. Took a case of a switcheroo, mixing items that looked similar but aren't, to really drive the point home.
hef19898 3y ago
Well, some of the materials used are special: aluminium alloys, titanoum alloyw, heat treatment, carbon fibers...
- zettabomb 3y ago
  They're standard alloys with special process controls. "Aerospace grade" aluminum is commonly just 2024. "Aerospace grade" titanium is often 6Al-4V. What makes them special isn't the alloy at all but things like traceability, continuous monitoring and testing of critical material properties, and supply chain.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    And you are sure about that? Because that would mean I purchased a lot of the wrong raw materials in my life, and if so I really, really should tell my collegues in engineering, procurement and quality control about it.
    - zettabomb 3y ago
      Pretty sure, considering I work in aerospace. Can you name any alloys or materials you've used which are in some way specific to aerospace?
      - hef19898 3y ago
        Not anymore, as it is quite a while I bought them. After all, it was just a P/N. Given that we had a full blown lab doing samples for all raw materials we bought to make sure tze alloy, heat treament and other properties were correct, yes, it definetly was different alloys. Quite a few actually. Depends on the actual use case of course: requirements for safety critical parts are higher than for less critical parts, say part connecting rotor blades to the rotor head had higher requirements than the door handle (both which were actual titanium in one case, and please don't ask why a door handle would be titanium to begin with...). Generally so, to come back to your question: I remember three different titanium alloys with different heat treatment we used back then. And at least five different alumium alloys. The Titanium ones were primarily aerospace, and export controlled depending in which form you bought it. And one particular steel alloy, not aerospace specific but also export controlled because it was dual use.