Chapter 116: The blame game
Translated by me, edited by drpetro.
Standing outside of Gree Electric’s booth, Ye Qing could sometimes hear references to high ranking positions like district chief, director, and director general.
The cause of the accident also cleared under these chaotically heated discussions.
First, no shortcuts were taken with the ceiling’s light steel framework.
According to the original design, the ceiling framework could still support the weight of many more products.
The chief of Chronicle Studio, which was in charge of the designing the exhibition hall, also arrived. This ponytailed artistic man with a goatee was famous to the point where even Ye Qing had heard of him.
He was Xiao Jun, who studied at China’s Construction University in Beijing, then went abroad to America’s Yale University. He oversaw the design of a string of iconic architectural works and works of art, including many iconic architectural works in foreign lands, which had been awarded international awards by the Britain’s Royal Institute of Architects.
Of course the sky art under the ceiling here wasn’t designed by him, but by one of his students.
He came over to clean up the mess created by the student. On paper the design seemed flawless, but in front of the cruel reality, the weight bearing light steel was warped into pieces of fried dough twists.
Chief designer Xiao Jun stared at the structure that used to support the air conditioner pipes for days as he tried to unravel the puzzle that caused the pipe to drop.
However, when maintenance people for Gree Electric opened up the pipeline from the extensions, they gave everyone a pleasant surprise.
The crowd hurriedly flocked to the starting point of the collapsing pipeline.
Inside the warped pipes was loads of pooling water. In addition, the pure bronze cooling pipe and the copper crevice disks that ran through the central shaft was covered in a light layer of ice.
“You, you……” Xiao Jun was angered to the point of trembling, as he pointed at the AC maintenance workers and the acting coordinating manager: “Look at the good work you’ve done. This is the result of your boasting, to let us experience a new winter?”
“Are you guys making air conditioners, or are you making freezers?”
Xiao Jun was literally pissed to the point of going nuts.
No wonder, no wonder he couldn’t find the cause.
His student who was responsible for designing this plan had always been level headed and deeply loveable, so Xiao Jun had also personally looked over his plan.
At the beginning of planning, clearly all equipment and part weights had been tallied, and they even included a certain margin of error.
No wonder he couldn’t find the cause even after arriving at the site of the destruction.
Holy …., there was actually ice forming within the AC pipeline! No need to guess where the pooling water came from, it was obviously from the melting ice. It was just that the pipeline was very tightly sealed, so none leaked out.
A winter experience; it already froze, so how can it not be cool?
If you added in this much ice, how much extra weight was this in the entire pipeline?
So the problem wasn’t from their end. At the same time that Xiao Jun let out a sigh of relief, his anger also rose once again.
Irresponsible behaviors like this from Gree Electric were basically making a joke out of Chronicle Studio’s hard earned reputation and future.
If it weren’t for them finding the cause, then how much loss would the studio actually experience?
“I need an explanation.” A ice cold looking man in a western suit stated after showing up.
Beside him were two recently graduated youngsters. The nearby workers when looking at them, and they all had signs of awe.
His name was Wen Xiaowei, the new district chief of the new Loupu region. In addition, the municipal deputy secretary general, and the deputy director of the free trade test area management committee were all based in his district.
“District chief Wen, and Mr. Xiao.” Gree Electric’s representative manager, after having greeted everyone, didn’t bother to explain the reason as to why ice had formed, rather he asked everyone present a single question.
“What do you guys think of our Gree Electric’s air conditioners?”
How is it?
Gree Electric’s air conditioners were basically everywhere, especially those large scale central air conditioning units. In ten towers, at least three of them would be using Gree Electric’s central air conditioning units.
Hearing the manager’s question, everyone went into deep thought. They weren’t bad. There weren’t no clear bonuses, but there were also no major flaws.
“Our Gree Group was established 30 years ago, and have been in the air conditioner business for most of that time. We have 20 different series of household and commercial air conditioners, as well as 300 plus other appliances.”
The representative manager, feeling a bit wronged, as well as feeling a bit confident, continued: “Everyone, do you think we, Gree Electric, when releasing an all new kind of air conditioning technique, would not test it under all imaginable conditions, and not think about the ice forming problem faced by almost all air conditioners?”
Having finished, the manager straight up looked at Chief planner Xiao Jun.
“Your Studio definitely didn’t do any data check on the weight of the air conditioning unit we installed on the steel framework. If you guys did, then you would’ve found that the data we provided is actually 30% more than the real product.”
“This water circulated central air conditioner used our group’s patented superconducting water technique to remove heat. Just look at the central bronze pipe, the superconducting water, even under -10 ℃, still remains in a liquid state, and is able to continuously circulate inside the sealed bronze pipe.”
“Every 10 cm of the pipe has a bronze guide disk, to allow the compressor to inject new air into the pipe, which is cooled as it passes along the way, then is blown out into the room by natural winds.”
“Natural winds naturally contain water vapour, so the longer the air conditioner remains operational, the more ice is formed. This ice forming is a very common scene, especially during winters in the south. If an air conditioner doesn’t form ice while in use, then it’s definitely broken.”
“Our outdoor main frame possesses a very smart detection system. When ice has formed to a certain degree, it’ll heat up the superconducting water to remove this ice.”
“However, this ice removal system should never be triggered, as this level of ice formation basically doesn’t affect our product at all.”
“As for the data we’ve provided, it already includes the weight of the excessive ice formation. That 30% extra weight already exceeds the trigger point of our ice removal system.”
“Hence our product is perfectly fine. The data we’ve provided is also unmistakable.”
Everyone on site looked at the manager as if shocked stupid.
The cause of the incident, from their eyes, was actually the least likely cause?
They already accounted for the extra weight from the ice, and even added on another 30% to the weight.
A single spiel from this manager had them feel the confidence Gree Electric had in their products, and the amount of extra consideration they had for their products.
Dealt with air conditioners for 30 years……
Yeah, they’ve made air conditioners for 30 years, so how could there exist such a gaping hole in laymen’s eyes?
Then what was the cause of the problem?
Xiao Jun’s facial expression was already twisted to the max, to the point where even if a supercomputer was present, it still wouldn’t be able to unravel it.
“I apologise for misunderstanding you.” District chief Wen Xiaowei took the lead on apologising, yet right after, he was also faced with the same doubting question.
The Studio definitely didn’t make any mistakes, the newly forged light steel also wasn’t those shoddy building materials, and Gree Electric’s product was also fool proof.
Then where was the problem?
Wen Xiaowei’s thoughts were trapped inside of a dark shroud.
Tomorrow would be the opening day for the exhibition. Then to delay its opening due to construction problems would literally be like taking Shanghai’s international reputation as well as this 19 year long annual exhibition’s reputation, shoving it down a toilet, and flushing it down the drains.
Without finding the cause, don’t mention fixing the gallery, what are they going to do with the fallen pipes?
The AC that dropped belong to a single corner. Yet the entire exhibition gallery is several tens of thousand square meters, which all used the same kind of steel sky framework, and the same kind of central air conditioner.
Modern day industrial products are all made from the same model. Hence if problem occurred in one corner, then that means the entire gallery is filled with problems.
Wen Xiaowei naturally believed that the root of the problem could be found, but how were they to resolve the safety problem of the entire gallery?
Did they really need to risk the chance of collapse in other locations, just so that they could open the exhibition without delay?
“Since the problem isn’t from the AC, then the cause must be in some minor detail we’ve missed.” Wen Xiaowei immediately fired off an order: “Get me a Construction engineering inspection company, and a material laboratory on the line. I do not believe in not able to find the root of the problem.”
The onlookers of the various companies, all started to shout out random speculations. Some said the strength of the fixture bolt was not up to grade. Others said the problem was with the welding of the steel framework. The light steel framework was made out of low alloy metal, so traditional welding techniques may not provide the necessary strength needed.
Of course, none of their speculations were correct.
Others were all discussing spiritedly, while Ye Qing with his data glasses, picked up some of the fractured light steel framework from the ground for careful examination.
“Perhaps……” Ye Qing commented with some pensiveness: “Perhaps I know why this happened.”