Fracture Analysis – Examples Beyond The Conventional

Fracture analysis requires knowledge of many different technologies, spanning a wide variety of materials, manufacturing methods and their potential defects, design aspects, assembly techniques, in-service loading conditions, and environmental effects.  In addition to a fundamental understanding of stress and stress concentration effects,  crack opening modes, and fracture surface macro and microscopic morphologies, appropriate analytical techniques must be selectively chosen and employed  in the proper sequence to maximize the information extracted and yield the best possible root cause determination.  When unusual aspects are encountered on fractured hardware investigations, an extended knowledge base and familiarity with the analytical tools becomes essential.  This presentation will provide synopses of fracture analyses that proved to be a bit beyond ‘the usual’, while relating their unusual aspects to classic fracture analysis methods, surface morphologies, and analytical techniques.