Re: Lack of long term investment in decaying infrastructure?
And since Puerto Rico is an island in the Caribbean it stands to reason the telescope cables were exposed to a LOT of salt spray.
From the article: An official investigation into what caused the cables to break away was launched in August,
I can already tell you what did it: chloride embrittlement and corrosion in general, combined with cyclic stress fatigue with continuous tensile stress. *SNAP*
Certain kinds of stainless steel are affected by chloride embrittlement, and though you may not see corrosion, you might STILL see pitting on the metal, and with constant tensile stress it causes microfractures into which the chlorides (from salty air and hurricanes and stuff like that) embrittle it (if I remember correctly). This is also somewhat the case for copper conductors and "just plain steel". Salty air is bad for them, yeah.
You would generally need to paint and/or coat all cables with some kind of anti-corrosion paint (or other coating) that typically has chromates or some similar material in it, and possibly use sacrificial anodes [if even possible] to limit galvanic corrosion. As far as chloride stress corrosion goes, you might not be able to stop it if the material is susceptible.
Also 'work hardening' due to cyclic stresses can also result in cracking and even total failure. 50-something years of hanging there through hurricanes might explain that, yeah. If you bend soft metal back/forth enough times, it cracks and breaks. Same idea.
And when a stress crack forms, the physical properties of it (along with salty air) form corrosion that just makes it worse.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
