A cast steel bracket manufactured in accordance with ASTM A 148 grade 135/125 steel failed in railroad maintenance service. Ancillary property requirements included a 285 to 331 HB hardness range and minimum impact energy of 27 J (20 ft·lbf) at -40 deg C (-40 deg F). The conditions at the time of failure were characterized as relatively cold. Investigation (visual inspection, chemical analysis, and unetched 119x and 2% nital etched 119x SEM images) supported the conclusion that the bracket failed through brittle overload fracture due to a number of synergistic factors. The quenched-and-tempered microstructure contained solidification shrinkage, inherently poor ductility, and type II Mn-S inclusions that are known to reduce ductility. The macro and microscale fracture features confirmed that the casting was likely in low-temperature service at the time of failure. The composition and mechanical properties of the casting did not satisfy the design requirements. Recommendations included exerting better composition control, primarily with regard to melting, deoxidation, and nitrogen control. Better deoxidation practice was recommended to generate the more desirable Mn-S inclusion morphology, and reevaluation of the casting design was suggested to minimize shrinkage.

A controllable pitch propeller (CPP) on a dynamic positioning ship failed after eight months of operation. The CPP design consists of a hollow propeller shaft and a concentrically located pipe that operates inside. The pitch of the propeller blades is controlled hydraulically through the longitudinal displacement of the inner (concentric) pipe. Fractography, microstructural, microhardness, and chemical analyses revealed that the concentric pipe failed due to fatigue. Fatigue cracks initiated along longitudinal welds where wire spacers attach to the external surface of the pipe. The effect of crack-like defects, stress concentration at the weld toe, residual tensile stress, and lack of penetration contributed to a shorter fatigue crack initiation phase and premature failure.

During the operation of tractors with cantilevered body, the lateral wall of the hypoeutectic cast iron cylinder blocks cracked repeatedly. Three of the blocks were examined. The grain structure of the thick-walled part consisted of uniformly distributed graphite of medium flake size in a basic mass of pearlite with little ferrite. But the thin-walled part showed a structure of dendrites of precipitated primary solid solution grains with pearlitic-ferritic structure and a residual liquid phase with granular graphite in the ferritic matrix. The structure was formed by undercooling of the residual melt. In this case, it was promoted by fast cooling of the thin wall and had comparatively low strength. The fracture formation in the cylinder blocks was ascribed primarily to casting stresses. They could be alleviated by better filleting of the transition cross sections. The fracture was promoted by the formation of undercooled microstructure of low strength in the thin-walled part. Similar damage appeared in a cylinder head, in which case, the cracks were promoted by a supercooled structure.

Turbine buckets in a 37.5-MW gas turbine made of Udimet 500 superalloy failed in service. The power plant was located 1 km (0.6 miles) from the Pacific Ocean and operated on No. 2 diesel fuel, which was supplied by tanker ship. Turbine bucket failures occurred on three units after 2500 to 6400 h of operation. Investigation (visual inspection, metallographic examination, and stress analysis) supported the conclusion that the differing microstructure of the airfoil resulted in changes in mechanical properties. Because normal operation includes cycling of loads and temperatures, the shroud tip fractured due to thermomechanical fatigue in its degraded state. Recommendations included special chromium or silicon-rich coating to minimize corrosion in gas turbines operating in a marine environment with operating temperatures in the range of type 2 corrosion (650 to 750 deg C, or 1200 to 1380 deg F). Additionally, it was suggested that fuel delivery, handling, and treatment be high quality, to maintain fuel contamination within design limits, and inlet air filtration must be designed for the coastal site. Also, changing the bucket tip by increasing its thickness and changing the casting technique would reduce the stress and make the design more tolerant of corrosion.

Sucker-rod pumps are operating in very aggressive environments in oil well production. The combined effect of a corrosive environment and significant mechanical loads contribute to frequent cases of failure of the rod string during operation. Standards and recommendations have been developed to control and avoid those failures. This study presents various failure cases of sucker rods in different applications. The heat treatment of the steel material and the resulting microstructure are an important factor in the behavior of the sucker rod. A spheroidized microstructure presents a weaker resistance to corrosion affecting the rod life. Non-metallic inclusions are a pitting preferential site leading to fatigue crack initiation. Heterogeneous microstructure as banded martensite and ferrite/pearlite decreases the ductility of the material affecting the fatigue propagation resistance.

A steering knuckle used on an earthmover failed in service. The component fractured into a flange portion and a shaft portion. The flange was 27.9 cm (11 in.) in diam around which there were 12 evenly spaced 16 mm diam bolt holes. The shaft was hollow with a 10.5 cm (4 in.) OD and a wall thickness of 17 mm. The steering knuckle was made of 4340 steel and heat treated to a hardness of about 415 HRB (yield strength of about 1069 MPa, or 155 ksi). The vehicle had been involved in a field accident six months before the steering knuckle failed. Several components, including portions of the frame, had been damaged and replaced, but there was no observed damage to the steering. Analysis supported the conclusion that the fracture was the result of the prior accident, the most likely explanation being that the shaft was bent and that continued use caused a crack to initiate and propagate to fracture. No evidence of a defective design, improper microstructure, high inclusion count, or other stress-raising condition was observed. No recommendations were made.

The drive shaft in a marine propulsion system broke, stranding a large vessel along the Canadian seacoast. The shaft was made from quenched and tempered low-alloy steel. Fractographic investigation revealed that the shaft failed under low rotating-bending variable stress. Fatigue propagation occurred on about 95% of the total cross section of the shaft, under both low-cycle and high-cycle fatigue mechanisms. It was found that the fillet radius at the fracture’s origin was smaller than the one provisioned by design. As a result, the stresses at this location exceeded the values used in the design calculations, thus causing the initiation of the cracking. Moreover, although the shaft had been quenched and tempered, its actual hardness did not have the optimal value for long-term fatigue strength.

Butterfly-shaped microstructural features in tempered martensite in an otherwise clean steel suggested that overloading led to premature spalling of a coal-crushing plant taper bearing. Extensive rolling contact fatigue occurred because of the overload condition. The crusher was designed to handle soft lignite coals but had been used to crush hard deep-mined anthracite coals.

This article discusses the failure of cylinder clamping rods in single cylinder diesel engines. The AISI 4140 hardened and tempered steel clamping rods were failing after 200 to 250 h of operation. The fatigue failures initiated at the root of the last thread on the clamping rod that was engaged in a blind hole in the cylinder block. The failures were caused by loose tolerances on the threads that resulted in a non-uniform distribution of load. The load was concentrated on the last threads to engage, thus causing fatigue crack nucleation at the thread root and propagation until the rod broke by overload. Changing the tolerance on the threads virtually eliminated the fatigue problem.

Some examples of equipment failures involving high temperature operation are presented. They include some steam generator superheater components and a pump shaft that should not have been at high temperature. Metallographic analysis is used to determine the causes of failure in each case.

The stub-shaft assembly which was part of the agitator shaft in a polyvinyl chloride reactor, fractured in service after a nut that retained a loose sleeve around the smaller-diam section of the shaft had been tightened several times to reduce leakage. The shaft was made of ASTM A105, grade 2 steel, and the larger-diam section was covered with a type 316 stainless steel end cap. The cap was welded to each end using type ER316 stainless steel filler metal. The forged steel shaft was revealed to have fractured at approximately 90 deg to the shaft axis in the weld metal and not in the heat-affected zone of the forged steel shaft. Microscopic investigation and chemical analysis of the steel shaft revealed presence of martensite (offered a path of easy crack propagation) around the fusion line and dilution of the weld metal by the carbon steel shaft. The microstructure was found to be martensitic as the fusion line was approached. The forged steel shaft was concluded to have failed by ductile fracture and possible reasons were discussed. Corrective measures adopted in the replacement shaft were specified.

A series of poppet-valve stems fabricated from 17-4 PH (AISI type 630) stainless steel failed prematurely in service during the development of a large combustion assembly. The poppet valves were part of a scavenging system that evacuated the assembly after each combustion cycle. The function of the valve is to open and close a port; thus, the valve is subjected to both impact and tensile loading. Analysis (visual inspection, hardness testing, and stress analysis) supported the conclusions that the valve stems were impact loaded to stresses in excess of their yield strength. That they failed in the threaded portion also suggests a stress-concentration effect. Recommendations included changing the material spec to a higher-strength material with greater impact strength. In this case, it was recommended that the stems, despite any possible design changes, be manufactured from an alloy such as PH 13-8Mo, which can be processed to a yield strength of 1379 MPa (200 ksi), with impact energies of the order of 81 J (60 ft·lbf) at room temperature.

Component slippage in the left-side final drive train of a tracked military vehicle was detected after the vehicle had been driven 13,700 km (8500 miles) in combined highway and rough-terrain service. The slipping was traced to the mating surfaces of the final drive gear and the adjacent splined coupling sleeve. Specifications included that the gear and coupling be made from 4140 steel bar oil quenched and tempered to a hardness of 265 to 290 HB (equivalent to 27 to 31 HRC) and that the finish-machined parts be single-stage gas nitrided to produce a total case depth of 0.5 mm (0.020 in.) and a minimum surface hardness equivalent to 58 HRC. Investigation (visual inspection, low-magnification images, 500X images of polished sections etched in 2% nital, spectrographic analysis, and hardness testing) supported the conclusion that the failure occurred by crushing, or cracking, of the case as a result of several factors. Recommendations included reducing the high local stresses at the pitch line to an acceptable level with a design modification. Also suggested was specification of a core hardness of 35 to 40 HRC to provide adequate support for the case and to permit attainment of the specified surface hardness of 58 HRC.

The locking collar on a machine failed suddenly when the shaft it restrained was inadvertently subjected to an axial load slightly higher than the allowable working load. The locking collar fractured abruptly, producing four large fragments. This allowed the shaft to be propelled forcefully in the direction of the load, causing substantial damage to other machinery components in the vicinity. The failed component, which was 43 cm (17 in.) in diameter, was machined from 4140 plate and heat treated to 34 to 36 HRC. Analysis (visual inspection, composite micrographs, scanning electron microscopy, and mechanical-property analysis) supported the conclusions that the alloy steel plate used in this application contained significant brittle microstructural fibering or banding. This condition produced considerable anisotropy in ductility and toughness as revealed by mechanical testing. Unfortunately, the potential effects of anisotropy were apparently neglected when this component was designed and manufactured from the plate stock, because the loading was applied in a direction that stressed the weakest planes in the material, that is, a direction normal to the fibering. No recommendations were made.

A throttle arm of an aircraft engine fractured and caused loss of engine control. The broken part consisted of a 6.4-mm (1/4-in.) diam medium-carbon steel rod with a thread to fit a knurled brass nut that was inserted into the throttle knob. The threaded rod had been welded to the throttle-linkage bar by an assembly-weld deposit made on the rod adjacent to the threaded portion. The fracture surface exhibited a coarse-grain brittle texture with an initiating crack at a thread root. The throttle-arm failed by brittle fracture because of the presence of cracks at the thread roots that were within the HAZ of the adjacent weld deposit. The heat of welding had generated a coarse-grain structure with a weak grain-boundary network of ferrite that had not been corrected by postweld heat treatment. The combination of the cracks and this unfavorable microstructure provided a weakened condition that resulted in catastrophic, brittle fracture under normal applied loads. The design was altered to eliminate the weld adjacent to the threaded portion of the rod.

This article provides an overview of metal additive manufacturing (AM) processes and describes sources of failures in metal AM parts. It focuses on metal AM product failures and potential solutions related to design considerations, metallurgical characteristics, production considerations, and quality assurance. The emphasis is on the design and metallurgical aspects for the two main types of metal AM processes: powder-bed fusion (PBF) and directed-energy deposition (DED). The article also describes the processes involved in binder jet sintering, provides information on the design and fabrication sources of failure, addresses the key factors in production and quality control, and explains failure analysis of AM parts.

A precipitation-hardened stainless steel poppet valve assembly used to shut off the flow of hydrazine fuel to an auxiliary power unit was found to leak. SEM and optical micrographs revealed that the final heat treatment designed for the AM-350 bellows material rendered the AM-355 poppet susceptible to intergranular corrosive attack (IGA) from a decontaminant containing hydroxy-acetic acid. This attack provided pathways for which fluid could leak across the sealing surface in the closed condition. It was concluded that the current design is flight worthy if the poppet valve assembly passes a preflight helium pressure test. However a future design should use the same material for the poppet and bellows so that the final heat treatment will produce an assembly not susceptible to IGA.

A die-cast zinc adapter used in a snowthrower failed catastrophically in a brittle overload manner. The component had a chemical composition similar to standard zinc alloy ZA-27 (UNS Z35840), although the iron content was much higher and the copper slightly lower. The mechanical properties and alloy designation were not specified. Investigation (visual inspection, 187x SEM images, unetched 30x images, hardness testing, and chemical analysis) of both the failed adapter and an exemplar casting from known-good lot supported the conclusion that the casting failed as a result of brittle overload fracture due to excessive iron-zinc phase and gross porosity. These conditions acted synergistically to reduce the strength of the material. The composition was nonstandard, and the inherent brittleness suggested that it was unlikely that this material was an intentional proprietary alloy. No recommendations were made.