The wires used in a wet precipitator for cleaning the gases coming off a basic oxygen furnace failed. The system consisted of six precipitators, three separate dual units, each composed of four zones. Each zone contained rows of wires (cold drawn AISI 1008 carbon steel) suspended between parallel collector plates. It was determined that the 1008 wires failed because of corrosion fatigue. It was decided to replace all of the wires in the two zones with the highest rates of failure with cold-drawn type 304 austenitic stainless steel wire. These expensive wires, however, failed after a week by transgranular SCC. Annealed type 430 ferritic stainless steel was subsequently suggested to prevent further failures.

Bending fatigue caused crack propagation and catastrophic failures at several locations near the welds on the low-carbon steel tubular cargo box frame of police three-wheel motorcycles. ANSYS finite element analysis revealed that bending stresses in some of the frame members were aggravated by poor detail design between vertical and horizontal tubes. Stresses observed in the ANSYS analysis were not sufficient to cause the onset of fatigue. However when compounded by stress concentration factors and in-service dynamic loading, the frame could have been regularly subjected to stresses over the fatigue limit of the material. A strain gage static loading test verified FEM results, and finite element techniques were applied in the design of reinforcing members to renovate the frames. Material properties were determined and welding procedures specified for the reinforcing members. Inspection intervals were devised to avoid future problems.