The information provided in this article is intended for those individuals who want to determine why a casting component failed to perform its intended purpose. It is also intended to provide insights for potential casting applications so that the likelihood of failure to perform the intended function is decreased. The article addresses factors that may cause failures in castings for each metal type, starting with gray iron and progressing to ductile iron, steel, aluminum, and copper-base alloys. It describes the general root causes of failure attributed to the casting material, production method, and/or design. The article also addresses conditions related to the casting process but not specific to any metal group, including misruns, pour shorts, broken cores, and foundry expertise. The discussion in each casting metal group includes factors concerning defects that can occur specific to the metal group and progress from melting to solidification, casting processing, and finally how the removal of the mold material can affect performance.

Some 99.90 pure tin tubes (0.15 mm thick) used for packaging a chemical compound cracked on bending and underwent brittle fracture prior to filling, while others remained ductile and showed no sign of failure. Examination showed that specimens prepared by mechanical methods such as electrolytic and hand polishing and the vibration method resulted in poor edge and crack edge definition due to material thickness. Etching experiments involved a grain surface attack and hence produced a rather strong surface relief from which the grain boundary cracks could again not clearly be differentiated. The sections were therefore examined unetched in polarized light. The microstructure of the cracked tubes was shown to have much smaller grains than the ductile and showed cracks from the surface down along the grain boundaries. Material hardness also differed between the unusable tubes and the ductile, and chemical analysis showed a higher level of aluminum in the brittle specimens. Failure obviously occurred due to the high material aluminum content that increased hardness which then caused embrittlement at the surface which led to cracks or fracture on bending. Since no explanation of how the aluminum entered the tin was available, no recommendations could be made.

Immediately after installation, leakage was observed at the mounting surface of several rebuilt hydraulic actuators that had been in storage for up to three years. At each joint, there was an aluminum alloy spacer and a vellum gasket. The mounting flanges of the steel actuators had been nickel plated. During assembly of the actuators a lubricant containing molybdenum disulfide had been applied to the gaskets as a sealant. The vellum gasket was found to be electrically conductive, and analysis (visual inspection, 500x unetched micrographs, galvanic action testing, and x-ray diffraction) supported the conclusions that leakage was the result of galvanic corrosion of the aluminum alloy spacers while in storage. The molybdenum disulfide was apparently suspended in a volatile water-containing vehicle that acted as an electrolyte between the aluminum alloy spacer and the nickel-plated steel actuator housing. Initially, the vellum gasket acted as an insulator, but the water-containing lubricant gradually impregnated the vellum gasket, establishing a galvanic couple. Recommendations included discontinuing use of molybdenum disulfide lubricant as a gasket sealer, and assembling the actuators using dry vellum gaskets.

An electron probe microanalyzer was applied to the study of service failures (due to severe heating) of aluminum wire connections in residential electrical circuits. Perturbed regions in which the composition underwent a change during the failure were revealed by optical and scanning electron microscopy of the contacts. A sequence of iron-aluminum compositions that shift from the pure aluminum of the wire to the nearly pure iron of the screw was revealed by analyses of two distinct layers formed on the aluminum/iron region. The compositions were found to correspond to specific intermetallic compounds found in the aluminum-iron phase diagram. Similar compositional variations were noted at the aluminum/brass interface. It was concluded that the failure of the electrical junction due to extreme heating was related to the formation of intermetallic compounds at the current carrying interfaces. These intermetallics were established to have a high resistance causing significant resistive heating.

This article focuses on the mechanisms of microbially induced or influenced corrosion (MIC) of metallic materials as an introduction to the recognition, management, and prevention of microbiological corrosion failures in piping, tanks, heat exchangers, and cooling towers. It discusses the degradation of various protective systems, such as corrosion inhibitors and lubricants. The article describes the failure analysis of steel, iron, copper, aluminum, and their alloys. It also discusses the probes available to monitor conditions relevant to MIC in industrial systems and the sampling and analysis of conditions usually achieved by the installation of removable coupons in the target system. The article also explains the prevention and control strategies of MIC in industrial systems.

This article provides an overview of the classification of hydrogen damage. Some specific types of the damage are hydrogen embrittlement, hydrogen-induced blistering, cracking from precipitation of internal hydrogen, hydrogen attack, and cracking from hydride formation. The article focuses on the types of hydrogen embrittlement that occur in all the major commercial metal and alloy systems, including stainless steels, nickel-base alloys, aluminum and aluminum alloys, titanium and titanium alloys, copper and copper alloys, and transition and refractory metals. The specific types of hydrogen embrittlement discussed include internal reversible hydrogen embrittlement, hydrogen environment embrittlement, and hydrogen reaction embrittlement. The article describes preservice and early-service fractures of commodity-grade steel components suspected of hydrogen embrittlement. Some prevention strategies for design and manufacturing problem-induced hydrogen embrittlement are also reviewed.

This article discusses the fundamental variables involved in fatigue-life assessment, which describe the effects and interaction of material behavior, geometry, and stress history on the life of a component. It compares the safe-life approach with the damage-tolerance approach, which employs the stress-life method of fatigue life assessment. The article examines the behavior of three different metallic materials used in the design and manufacture of structural components: steel, aluminum, and titanium. It also reviews the effects of retardation and spectrum load on component life. The article concludes with case studies of fatigue life assessment from the aerospace industry.