What did Joe Break This Time? Abnormal Failures of Table Knives During Operation

Table knives were allegedly invented by Cardinal Richelieu in the mid-1600s to stop his diners from using their knives to pick at their teeth while eating. Since that time, table knives have become ubiquitous. In this talk, we present a case study on the failure analysis of a set of table knives that cracked and fractured near the transition region between the flat blade and curved handle after approximately 15 years of household use, which included eating, hand washing in dish detergent, and cleaning in a dishwasher. We investigated the correlation between observed failures and factors such as material properties, microstructure, knife geometry, knife construction, corrosive working environment and stresses.