Any threat to personal safety should be regarded as a hazard and treated as such. This article discusses threats from several sources, such as kinematic/mechanical hazards, electrical hazards, energy hazards, human factors/ergonomic hazards, and environmental hazards. It describes hazard analysis in terms of failure modes and effects analysis, failure modes and criticality analysis, fault tree analysis, fault hazard analysis, and operating hazards analysis. The article examines fail-safe designs, such as fail-passive designs, fail-active designs, and fail-operational designs. It also provides information on various types of warnings, such as visual warning, auditory warnings, olfactory warnings, tactile warnings, and tastable warnings.

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 corrosion characteristics of superaustenitic stainless and duplex stainless steels, which are used in pharmaceutical industry. It describes passivation treatments and the electropolishing of stainless steels. The article informs that electropolishing is not a passivation treatment, although the proper execution of the process will result in a passive surface. The article concludes with a discussion on roughing, which is a phenomenon of particular interest to the pharmaceutical industry.

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 focuses on the various types of corrosion-related failure mechanisms and their effects on passive electrical components. The types include halide-induced corrosion, organic-acid-induced corrosion, electrochemical metal migration, silver tarnish, fretting, and metal whiskers. The passive electrical components include resistors, capacitors, wound components, sensors, transducers, relays, switches, connectors, printed circuit boards, and hardware.

This article includes a collection of color images that aid in the identification and classification of forms of corrosion in industries and environments. It emphasizes the negative aspects of corrosion and examines the cost and the effort to test, evaluate, simulate, and prevent corrosion. The ability of corrosion to undo the best complex engineered systems has been documented.

This article focuses on the specific aspects of nitinol that are of interest to medical device designers. It describes the physical metallurgy, physical properties, and tensile properties of the nitinol. The article discusses the factors influencing superelastic shape memory effects, fatigue, and corrosion in medical device design. It reviews the biocompatibility of nitinol based on corrosion behavior. The article explains the general principles, potential pitfalls, and key properties for manufacturing, heat treatment, and processing of nitinol.

This article discusses the principles of corrosion and the basis of the various prevention measures that can be taken for different corrosion modes. It describes aqueous corrosion phenomena in terms of the electrochemical reactions that occur at the metal-environment interface. The article explains the specific forms of corrosion, including general corrosion, localized attack, and environmentally assisted cracking. It provides a discussion on the engineering aspects of design that can, without due care and attention, precipitate unexpected premature failure. The article reviews ways to improve corrosion awareness and prevent corrosion/degradation. It describes a life prediction method with an example of environmental degradation in light-water nuclear reactors. The article concludes with a discussion on the validation of life-prediction algorithms and their applications.

Stray-current corrosion is an accelerated form of corrosion caused by externally induced electric current. It can occur in unprotected pipelines and submerged metal structures located near electric power sources or anywhere voltage differences exist. This article describes common scenarios and sources of stray current along with ways to detect it and prevent the type of corrosion it can cause.

Selection of appropriate grades of steel will enable the steel to perform for very long times with minimal corrosion, but an inadequate grade can corrode and perforate more rapidly than a plain carbon steel will fail by uniform corrosion. This article describes the effect of chemical composition, heat treatment, welding, and surface condition on corrosion resistance of stainless steels. It discusses the various forms of corrosion and the important factors to be considered when selecting suitable stainless steel for application in specific corrosive environments.

This article provides an overview of the identification systems for various grades of wrought stainless steels, namely, the American Iron and Steel Institute numbering system, the Unified Numbering System, and proprietary designations. It elaborates on five major families of stainless steels, as defined by the crystallographic structure. These include ferritic stainless steels, austenitic stainless steels, martensitic stainless steels, and precipitation-hardening stainless steels. The mechanism of corrosion protection for stainless steels is reviewed. The article examines the effects of composition, processing, design, fabrication, and external treatments on the corrosion of stainless steels. Various forms of corrosion, namely, general, galvanic, pitting, crevice, intergranular, stress-corrosion cracking, erosion-corrosion, and oxidation, are reviewed. Corrosion testing for; corrosion in atmosphere, water, and chemical environments; and the applications of stainless steels in various industries are also discussed.

This article describes mechanical/electrochemical phenomena related to in vivo degradation of metals used for biomedical applications. It discusses the properties and failure of these materials as they relate to stress-corrosion cracking (SCC) and corrosion fatigue (CF). The article presents the factors related to the use of surgical implants and their deterioration in the body environment, including biomedical aspects, chemical environment, and electrochemical fundamentals needed for characterizing CF and SCC. It provides a discussion on the use of metallic biomaterials in surgical implant applications, such as orthopedic, cardiovascular surgery, and dentistry. It addresses key issues related to the simulation of an in vivo environment, service conditions, and data interpretation. These include the frequency of dynamic loading, electrolyte chemistry, applicable loading modes, cracking mode superposition, and surface area effects. The article explains the fundamentals of CF and SCC, and presents the test findings from laboratory, in vivo, and retrieval studies.

This article focuses on the effects of process variables on corrosion of metals in processing plants: plant environments; startup, shutdown, and downtime conditions; and seasonal temperature changes. It also tabulates the effects of process variables on corrosion of metals in aggressive environments.

Corrosion modeling is an essential benchmarking element for the selection and life prediction associated with the introduction of new materials or processes. These models are most naturally expressed in terms of differential equations or in other nonexplicit forms of mathematics. This article discusses the principles and applications of various models developed for understanding the corrosion mechanism. These models include mechanistic models, including Pourbaix model, thermophysical module, electrochemical module, and ion association model; risk-based models; and knowledge models. The risk-based model and knowledge models are illustrated with examples for better understanding. The article also describes boundary-element modeling and pitting corrosion fatigue models.

In the field of medical device development and testing, the corrosion of metallic parts can lead to significant adverse effects on the biocompatibility of the device. This article describes the mechanisms of metal and alloy biocompatibility. It reviews the response of implant metals and particulate materials to corrosion. The effect of metal ions from an implanted device on the human body is also discussed. The article concludes with information on the possible cancer-causing effects of metallic biomaterials.

Mechanical and environmental loadings cause a variety of failure modes in composites, including matrix cracking, fiber-matrix debonding, delamination between plies, and fiber breakage. This article summarizes visual analysis and nondestructive testing methods for the failure analysis of composites. These methods include radiography, ultrasonic techniques, acoustic emission, and thermograph. The article also provides information on destructive test techniques.

This article provides a discussion on the design, in-process, storage, and in-field problems and their considerations associated with armament corrosion with examples. Design considerations include geometry, material selection, assembly, pretreatment, coatings, and working and storage environments. In-process corrosion concerns include processing locations, in-process storage of parts, time between processing steps, and quality control of each processing step. The article also discusses the analysis of the in-field corrosion of the finished product, including physical environments, repair of corrosion-protective coatings, general corrosion-protection maintenance, and appropriate fixes and procedures that can be implemented by soldiers in-field to stop continued corrosion of armament equipment.

The corrosion behavior of a metal or alloy is determined by its composition and structural features, the environment and stresses to which it is exposed, and the behavior of any corrosion products generated. This article provides a detailed discussion on the fundamentals of pure metals, impure metals, and alloys. It highlights the ways in which the metallurgical variables, namely, composition and structure, influence the corrosion properties of metals and alloys in aqueous environment.

This article provides information on biomedical aspects such as active biological responses and the chemical environment characterizing the internal physiological milieu, as well as electrochemical fundamentals needed for characterizing corrosion fatigue (CF) and stress-corrosion cracking (SCC). It discusses some of the mechanical and electrochemical phenomena related to the in vivo degradation of materials used for biomedical applications. These materials include stainless steels, cobalt and titanium-base alloy systems, and dental amalgam. The article addresses key issues related to the simulation of the in vivo environment, service conditions, and data interpretation. The factors influencing susceptibility to CF and SCC are reviewed. The article describes the testing methodology of CF and SCC. It also summarizes findings from laboratory testing, in vivo testing and retrieval studies related to CF and SCC.

This article addresses the forms of corrosion that contribute directly to the failure of metal parts or that render them susceptible to failure by some other mechanism. It describes the mechanisms of corrosive attack for specific forms of corrosion such as galvanic corrosion, uniform corrosion, pitting and crevice corrosion, intergranular corrosion, and velocity-affected corrosion. The article contains a table that lists combinations of alloys and environments subjected to selective leaching and the elements removed by leaching.