Module 1

Metal Failure Modes and Their

Identification
 Classification of the causes of failure
Faulty design considerations/ misapplication of materials
• Ductile failure – excessive
deformation (elastic or plastic),
tearing or shear fracture).
• Severe stress raiser
• Brittle fracture – from flaws and
inherent in design.
critical stress raisers.
• Fatigue failure – due to time- • Inadequate stress
varying load, thermal cycling, analysis
corrosion fatigue.
• Mistake in designing
• High-temperature failure – on basis of static tensile
creep, oxidation, local melting,
properties only
warping.
• Static delayed fracture –
hydrogen embrittlement
 Classification of the causes of failure

Faulty processing •Abnormalities due to heat treatment

• Flaws due to faulty composition – – grain growth, precipitation, excessive
wrong material, inclusions, retained austenite, decarburization.
embrittleing impurities. • Flaws due to case hardening –
• Defects originating in ingot making intergranular carbides, soft core.
and casting – porosity, non-metallic • Defects due to surface treatment –
inclusions, segregation. plating, chemical diffusion, hydrogen
• Defects due to working – laps, embrittlement.
seams, hot-short splits, excess local • Parting-line failure in forging - due to
deformation poor transverse properties.
• Irregularities / mistakes due to • Careless assembly – mismatch of
machining, grinding or stamping – mating parts, residual stress, gouges.
burns, tearing, cracks.
• Welding defects – voids, undercuts,
residual stresses, HAZ, lack of
penetration.
 Classification of the causes of failure
Deterioration in service
• Overload / unforeseen loading • Radiation damage -
conditions decontamination may destroy
evidence for the cause of
• Wear – erosion, galling, seizing,
failure.
cavitation.
• Accidental condition –
• Corrosion – chemical attack,
abnormal operating
stress corrosion, oxidation
temperature, severe vibration,
• Inadequate / misdirected impact, thermal shock.
maintenance or improper repair –
welding, grinding, cold
straightening.
• Disintegration by chemical attack,
attack by liquid metals or plating at
elevated temperature
Common Failure Modes
Fracture
Fatigue
Electrical failure
Corrosion
Wear and tear
Radiation damage
Fractures

In ductile fractures, the applied stresses would

have exceeded the yield stress

In brittle fractures, the applied stresses may be

much below the yield stress of the material and the
role of excessive stress concentrators and
inadequate material properties attain more
importance
 Ductile vs Brittle Failure
Fracture Very Moderately
Brittle
behavior: Ductile Ductile

%AR or %EL Large Moderate Small

• Ductile fracture is Ductile: Brittle:
usually more desirable Warning before No
than brittle fracture. fracture warning

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Ductile fracture (DF) occurs under plane stress conditions when the Von-Mises
stress of the component exceeds the uniaxial tensile stress of the material.

• The fractured region usually exhibits visible yielding and plastic deformation
and is usually necked at the fracture;
• the deformation and fracture processes absorb a large amount of energy.
• If the fracture path is perpendicular to the maximum tensile stress, the
fracture surface tends to have a grayish appearance (for steel), but if it is
parallel to the maximum shear stress direction (shear failure) the fracture
surface tends to have a characteristically smooth, silky appearance
• The failure process occurs by Micro-Void-Coalescence (MVC) and the voids will
be seen as dimples under a scanning electron microscope (SEM)
 Moderately Ductile Failure
• Evolution to failure:

void Coalescence Crack fracture

necking
nucleation of cavities propagation

• Resulting 50
50mm
mm
fracture
surfaces
(steel)
100 mm
particles From V.J. Colangelo and F.A. Heiser, Analysis of Fracture surface of tire cord wire loaded in tension.
Metallurgical Failures (2nd ed.), Fig. 11.28, p. 294, John Courtesy of F. Roehrig, CC Technologies, Dublin, OH.
serve as void Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1987. (Orig. source: P. Thornton, J. Used with permission.
Mater. Sci., Vol. 6, 1971, pp. 347-56.)
nucleation
sites. 9
 Ductile vs. Brittle Failure

cup-and-cone fracture brittle fracture

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 Ductile Failure

(a) SEM image showing spherical dimples resulting

from a uniaxial tensile load. (b) SEM image of
parabolic dimples from shear loading.
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Brittle fracture (BF) Little or no deformation would be visible due to the
relatively low stresses involved and the energy consumed would be much
lower than that for an equivalent ductile fracture.

• Macroscopically, small shear lips may be present at the edges and at the end
of the fracture surface.
• For steel, the fracture surface would have a bright, shiny, and faceted
(grainy) appearance.
• V-shaped ridges on the fracture surface, commonly called chevron markings,
point to the crack origin
 Brittle Fracture - Transgranular
• Cleavage - in most brittle crystalline materials, crack
propagation that results from the repeated breaking
of atomic bonds along specific planes.
• This leads to transgranular fracture where the crack
splits (cleaves) through the grains.

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 Intergranular Fracture

• Intergranular failure is typically due to elemental

depletion at the grain boundaries or some type of
weakening of the grain boundary due to chemical
attack, oxidation, embrittlement.
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Fatigue Failure is caused by stress systems with a variable component, whether of
alternating, repeating, or random character.
• can occur over a wide stress spectrum; high stresses cause what is known as low-cycle
fatigue (failure in less than 103 cycles) and lower stresses cause high-cycle fatigue.
• In certain materials like steel, there is a stress limit below which fatigue does not occur,
an endurance limit.
• In some materials such as Al and its alloys, no endurance limit is present and the
fatigue limit should always be quoted together with the expected cycles to failure.
• evident markings on the surface such as ratchet marks and beach marks, which indicate
the initiation point and direction of crack growth, respectively
• Under high magnification, microscopic marks caused by the crack growth process, and
known as striations
 Fatigue Fracture
• Fracture surface with
crack initiation at top –
shiny surface.

• Surface shows
predominantly dull
fibrous texture where
rapid failure occurred
after crack achieved
critical size.

• Fatigue failure
1. Crack initiation
2. Crack propagation
3. Final failure

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 bicycle crank spider arm

This long term fatigue crack in a high quality component took a

considerable time to nucleate from a machining mark between the spider
arms on this highly stressed surface. However once initiated propagation
was rapid and accelerating as shown in the increased spacing of the 'beach
marks' on the surface caused by the advancing fatigue crack.
SMBS, VIT University Annamalai.K 17
 Crank shaft

Gear tooth failure

SMBS, VIT University Annamalai.K 18

SMBS, VIT University Annamalai.K 19
Corrosion

Corrosion is the wastage or degradation of a material through

chemical attack by environmental species, the most common of
which are oxygen (oxidant) and water (electrolyte).

In the absence of an electrolyte, and especially at elevated

temperatures, oxidation takes place, resulting in the formation of
oxide films. This process is often called dry corrosion and such
corrosion is not an issue except in components such as boiler tubes
or gas turbines, which are subjected to hot flue gases.

Where both species are present together, electrochemical reactions

are responsible and the process is often called wet corrosion.