Failure Analysis Expert Discusses Metal Fatigue

Failure analysis was performed on a failed pin from a large tractor. The upper right gives an overview of the pin. Upper left is a close up of the fracture surface. The fatigue crack originated at the top of the photo and progressed downward until the final overload failure.

GLass Expert Analyzes Wine Bottle Failure

Glass expert analyzed several leaking wine bottles that eventually broke in half. All the bottle failures occured on the heal. Also, during failure analysis, it was discovered that all of the bottle failures were made in one cavity of a multi-cavity bow mold tool. Bottles from the other cavities did not have this problem. These bottles were made from very thick dark glass. It is believed that the failures were initiated as chill cracks. However, more process development work must be done at the factory to correct this manufacturing defect. Two suggestions are to eliminate any drafts in the factory and increase the amount of post mold flame heating on the conveyer. Bottles made from thick glass are more likely the have this glass failure mode.

Glass Expert Analyzes Wine Bottle Failure

Tempered Glass Expert Shows Multple Views of Nickel Sulfide Particle

The result of a failure analysis, a glass expert presents several views of a 180µ diameter origin (nickel sulfide particle) of a failed tempered glass door. The upper left photomicrograph is taken with a low power optical microscope and it includes the NiS particle and the initial Wallner lines. Upper right and lower left are taken with a high power optical microscope. with and without Nomarski. Finally lower right is an Scanning electron microscope photomicrograph of the same particle. The inportance here is that the distinct shape and surface of a NiS particle makes it identifiable with an optical microscope.

Glass Failure Analysis of Laminated and Tempered GLass

Glass failure analysis was performed by a failure analysis expert on a large laminated window of which one layer was tempered glass. The tempered half of the lamination failed. The other half of the window held the system together, and this allowed a failure analysis to be performed. The upper left photo is an over view of the window failure. The arrow indicates the general location of the failure origin of the tempered glass layer. The upper right photo is a closeup of the origin. The arrow indicates the location of a nickel sulfide particle (NiS) that caused the failure. It was reported that the tempered glass had been heat soaked. In this case the heat soak test (HST) did not eliminate on this window before it was sold.

Failure Analysis Expert shows Nickel Sulfide Particle

Failure analysis expert observed a nickel sulfide particle using Nomarski optics. The various colors show different elevations of the surface around the particle. This particle was at the origin of a failed tempered glass door. This is an interesting result of a glass failure analysis performed on the door.