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Tech wrecks: Lessons from some of the biggest hardware screw-ups

Most design flaws are more annoying than harmful, but over the years some have caused major disasters or changed the course of an industry. We look at a few of the most memorable and the lessons learned from them.
By David Cardinal
computer fire
computer fire

Tech wrecks often headline our daily news, mostly the result of operator error or equipment failure -- generally they are "one-off" incidents which leave the front pages as quickly as they arrive. Some failures, though, start with faulty designs, and are doomed to be repeated until diagnosed and fixed. In addition to making for good headlines, these sobering bits of high-tech history offer some valuable lessons that can help shape the way designers think and lawmakers regulate.

We've rounded up some of history's most serious, famous, and instructive hardware design failures for you -- avoiding bridges and buildings, as they really need an article or two of their own. Some of these failures were fatal, some a nuisance, and some even a bit humorous. All have lessons for anyone involved in designing or developing high-tech products.

Next page: Burning batteries...

Fire in the hold -- Sony laptop batteries

Dell laptop fire

Typical of many design failures, overheating and fires caused by manufacturing defects in Sony-made laptop batteries in 2006 were met with corporate foot-dragging and denial. After Dell recalled over four million of the batteries, Sony insisted Dell was the only computer maker affected.

A week later, after Apple had to recall millions of batteries, Sony changed its tune to claim the damage stopped with Apple. Other laptop vendors including Lenovo and HP were quick to echo the sentiment, giving technical explanations "proving" that they wouldn't be affected. Yet, over the next few weeks nearly every major laptop maker -- including Lenovo and HP -- had to recall some of the Sony batteries they had been selling. Sony, and apparently Dell, had known about the manufacturing issue that caused the problem -- issues in fabrication that left bits of metal in the cells -- many months earlier, but decided the problem wasn't worth fixing until the fires began being reported by customers.

PC Pitstop recreated the conditions for an exploding laptop battery in their labs, which makes for this compelling demonstration:

It's easy to forget how widespread the effects of the battery problems were. This news report enumerates the wide variety of issues it caused, like fires in planes and burned vehicles:

The far-ranging impact of the faulty batteries is a great illustration of the law of unanticipated consequences. During the height of the controversy, the number of actual fires reported was well under 100 -- a minuscule fraction of the tens of millions of laptops sold. However, when those fires were in cargo holds or in vehicles, the otherwise small failure of a battery and perhaps loss of a computer was magnified into a potentially major disaster.

Another unanticipated consequence was the firestorm of publicity that necessitated the recall. Sony learned that even a few product safety incidents were worth taking seriously, and changed its defect reporting policies after the battery debacle -- a lesson Toyota would need to relearn in spades when reports of their vehicles accelerating on their own started to come in.

Next page: Square windows, big problems...

Square windows that changed the aviation industry -- de Havilland Comet

de Havilland Comet 1 showing square windows

Imagine an aviation industry led by Britain's de Havilland, with Boeing in a distance second place. That's how it was after the Comet -- the world's first jetliner -- was introduced by de Havilland in 1952. Sleek and fast, it eventually cut six hours off the flight time from New York to London.

In order to take full advantage of its higher-powered jet engines, the airplane flew at 35,000 feet -- providing a faster and smoother flight. High-altitude flying is standard today, but pressurized cabins were new and poorly understood at that time. The Comet's designers opted for large, squared-off windows because they looked more attractive than the simpler, round "porthole" style that had been more traditional. Unfortunately for the Comet, and for dozens of passengers who would die in several resulting crashes, metal fatigue was also not well understood. Stresses piled up around the square corners of the windows, and over time planes began to drop from the sky.

de Havilland Comet windowSince the crashes were at high altitude and often over water, it took time before the problem could be traced to the size and shape of the windows. The sleuthing wasn't successful until after a full-size fuselage was repeatedly pressurized in a water tank -- and it failed near the window corners. Once the flaw was uncovered, the fleet was pulled out of service. While the Comet was being redesigned with new windows and a thicker skin, Boeing's 707 and Douglas's DC-8 were introduced and became airline favorites. By the time the newly designed Comet 4 re-entered commercial service in 1958 it was too late. Primacy in commercial aviation had moved from the UK to the US, never to return.

Engineers from both Boeing and Douglas are reported to have told de Havilland privately that they also had no idea about the fatigue and pressurization problems, and may well have made the same mistake if it hadn't been for the Comet. Design problems were also magnified by the manufacturing process. Rivets attaching the windows were punched instead of drilled, creating more stress than expected by the designers -- who had planned for drilled rivets. Wherever the blame is laid, the aviation industry benefited from the intensive analysis and resulting learnings about pressurization and metal fatigue.

Next page: The shuttle disaster that shocked the nation...

Faulty O-ring -- Space shuttle Challenger

Space Shuttle Challenger tribute poster snapshot

Like most design-related disasters, the catastrophic failure of a pair of O-rings in the space shuttle Challenger was the result of more than just a poor design by Morton Thiokol, contractors for the ship's solid rocket booster (SRB). NASA was also implicated by the post-mortem Rogers Commission investigation for ignoring warnings about the design for nearly a decade. A launch in cool temperatures -- also flagged as a problem -- exacerbated the defect, and the result was one of the worst space disasters in history.

78 seconds after launch, an O-ring (and its backup) in one of the SRBs failed, allowing gas to vent outside and begin to rip apart the shuttle. Without any escape system, all seven crew members were doomed once the craft separated into pieces. While the inadequate dual O-ring design (one primary and one backup) is certainly to blame, the incident is also a case study in how organizations ignore warning signs at their peril.

At various times over the nine years prior to the Challenger's launch, engineers at both NASA and Morton Thiokol realized there were problems and reported them. Even right before the launch, Thiokol recommended a delay due to concerns the O-rings would fail in the cold weather. At that point it was NASA that urged the launch not be postponed -- although they didn't know the whole story about the previous concerns of design engineers about the O-rings. The seal around the O-Rings was being redesigned as the Challenger mission took flight, but the problem was never deemed serious enough to ground the shuttle program -- until after the Challenger explosion, when it was halted for 32 months. When the shuttles resumed, an improved triple O-ring design was in place.

Next page: Olympic-sized design failure...

Terror on ice -- Olympic bobsled run

Olympic bobsled

Greed is at the heart of many tech-related tragedies, and the accidents at Whistler's luge run built for the Vancouver Olympics were no exception. Hoping to extend the life of the run to gather tourist dollars after the big event, the track was situated on a cramped spot at the popular Whistler ski resort, instead of on a larger, safer space near the city. Normally, sled runs are carefully designed to provide exciting competition at high speeds while still providing for the safety of the competitors. Like any other design challenge, though, eventually the performance envelope gets pushed past the boundaries of safety -- in this case magnified by a narrow and steep location for the course.

Whistler Sliding Centre track during a runEven after record-breaking runs of nearly 100 miles per hour and a resulting fatality caused the Luge federation to restrict future courses to 87 mph designs, they also decided not to try and fix the Whistler track. At least by then many minor changes had been made to the run's safety walls and the starting location to enhance safety.

As we've seen with our other design disasters, there was a large paper trail of concerns, legal opinions, and denial leading up to the fatal accident -- which only came to light once someone was killed. The Olympic organizing committee (VANOC), the International Luge Federation (ILF) and the run's designer, Udo Gurgel, took turns both denying they knew of problems and revealing that they had long had concerns. None of them, or the athletes -- who had nicknamed turn 13 "50/50" for their chances of making it through on course -- had the courage to actually stop the event or make what proved to be important changes until international attention was drawn to the course by the high-profile accident right before the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

While not a conventional hardware failure, as we'd normally think of it, this was a failure of design and a failure to take preventative measures into account. In other words, it might seem different because of the setting and involvement of sport, but it has all the markings of a tech wreck.

Next page: The first computer "bug"...

First computer bug -- Hopper's Aiken Relay Calculator

First Computer Bug from 1947

When we think of bugs today, they're usually a software problem. This poor moth, though, was found stuck in the early Aiken Relay Calculator that Grace Hopper's team was trying to program in 1947. While the moth's namesakes -- computer bugs -- have been responsible for hundreds of disasters of all sizes, and likely thousands of deaths, this poor critter did nothing more than cause the group to waste some time and it gave up its life for post-mortem glory. Amazingly, the text "First actual case of bug being found" was actually written in their log by the operators who found the moth. How did they know that bugs and debugging would go on to become two of the most famous terms in computing?

That's actually the more interesting part of the story -- the real history of the term bug. It turns out that there was an antecedent for the use of the word that explains the log entry. Edison, decades earlier, had described the process of troubleshooting(Opens in a new window) a technical glitch in his phonograph as looking for an (imaginary in this case) bug. Even Edison may have borrowed the term from telegraphers -- Edison got his start in telegraphy -- who used it to describe problems possibly due to insects getting into the cables. So it makes sense that Hopper's team, with a sense of humor, would refer to the moth as an "actual case" of a bug being found. Perhaps the lesson here is that you don't have to be the first to use a term to become the one famous for it. Probably no consolation to the now infamous moth.

Purists will point out that the bug isn't really a technical flaw, but I wanted to end the article on a humorous note because, frankly, failed hardware usually isn't all that funny. And in any case, the photo is too good to pass up.

[Image credits: Challenger explosion(Opens in a new window)Bug log(Opens in a new window), laptop fire(Opens in a new window), bobsled(Opens in a new window), Whistler Sliding Centre(Opens in a new window), computer(Opens in a new window)]

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