Search Results for waxes

A sprinkler head unit that was installed in a smoking lounge of a multi story office building in 1975 failed, causing substantial water damage. There was no fire in the building. A set of four sprinkler heads -- three that had been installed in 1975 (the failed unit, an unfailed unit from the same room, and an unfailed unit from another room) and an unused 1991 unit -- were examined. casting revealed no material defects or mechanical damage. Because of several environmental factors, it was suspected that the failed unit was exposed to temperatures much above the normal office environment. On this basis, it was concluded that creep of the solder alloy was the most probable cause of failure.

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.

Type 410 stainless steel bolts were used to hold together galvanized gray cast iron splice case halves. Before installation, the bolts were treated with molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) antiseize compound. Several failures of splice case bolts were discovered in flooded manholes after they were in service for three to four months. Laboratory experiments were conducted to determine if the failure mode was hydrogen-stress cracking, if sulfides accelerate the failure, if heat treatment can improve the resistance against this failure mode, and if the type 305 austenitic stainless steel would serve as a replacement material. Based on test results, the solution to the hydrogen-stress cracking problem consisted of changing the bolt from type 410 to 305 stainless steel, eliminating use of MoS2, and limiting the torque to 60 N·m (540 in.·lb).

Several cases of embrittlement failure are analyzed, including liquid-metal embrittlement (LME) of an aluminum alloy pipe in a natural gas plant, solid metal-induced embrittlement (SMIE) of a brass valve in an aircraft engine oil cooler, LME of a cadmium-plated steel screw from a crashed helicopter, and LME of a steel gear by a copper alloy from an overheated bearing. The case histories illustrate how LME and SMIE failures can be diagnosed and distinguished from other failure modes, and shed light on the underlying causes of failure and how they might be prevented. The application of LME as a failure analysis tool is also discussed.

Pinhole defects were found in a main combustion chamber made from NARloy-Z after an unexpectedly short time in service. Analysis indicated that the throat section of the liner had been exposed to very severe environmental conditions of high temperature and high oxygen content, which caused ductility loss and grain-boundary separation. The excessive oxygen content in the liner was attributed to diffusion from an oxygen-rich environment that had resulted from nonuniform mixing of propellants. The internal oxygen embrittled the alloy and reduced its thermal conductivity, which resulted in a higher hot-gas wall temperature and associated degradation of mechanical properties.

Microbial degradation in the environment is initiated by abiotic (nonliving physical or chemical) processes. Mechanical weathering and other mechanical processes are the main drivers of the initial degradation. This article presents an overview of weathering and biodegradation. It summarizes the main synthetic polymers that are released and available for bacterial and fungal decomposition. The article also presents a detailed discussion on the enzymes that are involved in plastic degradation, and the measurement of polymer degradation.

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.

Polymer materials are key building blocks of the modern world, commonly used in packaging, automobiles, building materials, electronics, telecommunications, and many other industries. These commercial applications of polymeric materials would not be possible without the use of additives. This article is divided into five sections: mechanical property modifiers, physical property modifiers, biological function modifiers, processing aids, and colorants. It describes three classes of additives that are used to inhibit biological activity, six classes of mechanical property modifiers, three classes of physical property modifiers, and two classes of both colorants and processing aids.

This article discusses the classification of sliding bearings and describes the major groups of soft metal bearing materials: babbitts, copper-lead bearing alloys, bronze, and aluminum alloys. It provides a discussion on the methods for fluid-film lubrication in bearings. The article presents the variables of interest for a rotating shaft and the load-carrying capacity and surface roughness of bearings. Grooves and depressions are often provided in bearing surfaces to supply or feed lubricant to the load-carrying regions. The article explains the effect of contaminants in bearings and presents the steps for failure analysis of sliding bearings. It also reviews the factors responsible for bearing failure with examples.

This article provides practical information and data on property development in engineering plastics. It discusses the effects of composition on submolecular and higher-order structure and the influence of plasticizers, additives, and blowing agents. It examines stress-strain curves corresponding to soft-and-weak, soft-and-tough, hard-and-brittle, and hard-and-tough plastics and temperature-modulus plots representative of polymers with different degrees of crystallinity, cross-linking, and polarity. It explains how viscosity varies with shear rate in polymer melts and how processes align with various regions of the viscosity curve. It discusses the concept of shear sensitivity, the nature of viscoelastic properties, and the electrical, chemical, and optical properties of different plastics. It also reviews plastic processing operations, including extrusion, injection molding, and thermoforming, and addresses related considerations such as melt viscosity and melt strength, crystallization, orientation, die swell, melt fracture, shrinkage, molded-in stress, and polymer degradation.

This article describes the methodology for performing a failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA). It explains the methodology with the help of a hot water heater and provides a discussion on the role of FMEA in the design process. The article presents the analysis procedures and shows how proper planning, along with functional, interface, and detailed fault analyses, makes FMEA a process that facilitates the design throughout the product development cycle. It also discusses the use of fault equivalence to reduce the amount of labor required by the analysis. The article shows how fault trees are used to unify the analysis of failure modes caused by design errors, manufacturing and maintenance processes, materials, and so on, and to assess the probability of failure mode occurrence. It concludes with information on some of the approaches to automating the FMEA.

This article provides an overview of the electrochemical nature of corrosion and analyzes corrosion-related failures. It describes corrosion failure analysis and discusses corrective and preventive approaches to mitigate corrosion-related failures of metals. These include: change in the environment; change in the alloy or heat treatment; change in design; use of galvanic protection; use of inhibitors; use of nonmetallic coatings and liners; application of metallic coatings; use of surface treatments, thermal spray, or other surface modifications; corrosion monitoring; and preventive maintenance.

This article discusses technologies focused on processing plastic materials or producing direct tools used in plastics processing. The article focuses on extrusion and injection molding, covering applications, materials and their properties, equipment, processing details, part design guidelines, and special processes. It also covers the functions of the extruder, webline handling, mixing and compounding operations, and process troubleshooting. Thermoforming and mold design are covered. Various other technologies for polymer processing covered in this article are blow molding, rotational molding, compression molding, transfer molding, hand lay-up process, casting, and additive manufacturing.

This article focuses on the general root causes of failure attributed to the casting process, casting material, and design with examples. The casting processes discussed include gravity die casting, pressure die casting, semisolid casting, squeeze casting, and centrifugal casting. Cast iron, gray cast iron, malleable irons, ductile iron, low-alloy steel castings, austenitic steels, corrosion-resistant castings, and cast aluminum alloys are the materials discussed. The article describes the general types of discontinuities or imperfections for traditional casting with sand molds. It presents the international classification of common casting defects in a tabular form.

This article offers an overview of fatigue fundamentals, common fatigue terminology, and examples of damage morphology. It presents a summary of relevant engineering mechanics, cyclic plasticity principles, and perspective on the modern design by analysis (DBA) techniques. The article reviews fatigue assessment methods incorporated in international design and post construction codes and standards, with special emphasis on evaluating welds. Specifically, the stress-life approach, the strain-life approach, and the fracture mechanics (crack growth) approach are described. An overview of high-cycle welded fatigue methods, cycle-counting techniques, and a discussion on ratcheting are also offered. A historical synopsis of fatigue technology advancements and commentary on component design and fabrication strategies to mitigate fatigue damage and improve damage tolerance are provided. Finally, the article presents practical fatigue assessment case studies of in-service equipment (pressure vessels) that employ DBA methods.

Corrosion is the deterioration of a material by a reaction of that material with its environment. The realization that corrosion control can be profitable has been acknowledged repeatedly by industry, typically following costly business interruptions. This article describes the electrochemical nature of corrosion and provides the typical analysis of environmental- and corrosion-related failures. It presents common methods of testing of laboratory corrosion and discusses the processes involved in the prevention of environmental- and corrosion-related failures of metals and nonmetals.

This article discusses the failure analysis of several steel transmission pipeline failures, describes the causes and characteristics of specific pipeline failure modes, and introduces pipeline failure prevention and integrity management practices and methodologies. In addition, it covers the use of transmission pipeline in North America, discusses the procedures in pipeline failure analysis investigation, and provides a brief background on the most commonly observed pipeline flaws and degradation mechanisms. A case study related to hydrogen cracking and a hard spot is also presented.

This article describes the preliminary stages and general procedures, techniques, and precautions employed in the investigation and analysis of metallurgical failures that occur in service. The most common causes of failure characteristics are described for fracture, corrosion, and wear failures. The article provides information on the synthesis and interpretation of results from the investigation. Finally, it presents key guidelines for conducting a failure analysis.