Glass Failure Expert Witness Analyzes Failed Wine Bottle

Glass expert performed a root cause failure analysis of a broken wine bottle. The bottle had broken at the neck into three pieces (Upper left photograph). One piece still contained the cork with the cork screw still in place. In this case the the cork screw was off center and had exited the cork when it was being "screwed" in. The side of the cork screw crushed the interior wall of the bottle neck, and this initiated the failure. The upper right photograph is of the re-assembled top of the bottle. In it one can see the exposed edge of the cork screw and the "crush" defect on the interior of the bottle neck. With this type of cork screw the cork is pried out with a lever force. In this case, this force was sufficient to cause failure and injuryto the person opening the bottle. With this type of cork screw the user must be careful to center it, or he could be injured.

This glass failure analysis showed that the failure was a result of operator error. There was no manufacturing defect.

Wine Bottle Failure Analysis

Glass Failure Analysis Expert Witness Performs Wine Bottle Failure Analysis. In this product liability case the user was injured as the cork was being extracted. The glass failure expert witness performed a glass failure analysis and determined that the bottle failure initiated at the very top of the bottle. Thus, the cork screw could not have caused the damage that initiated the failure. Unopened bottles from the same case were examined, and it was discovered that the rod that pushed the cork in was very close to the glass in three of the four bottles that were examined. This indicates that the failed bottle was damaged during the corking operation. In addition, the forces used to extract the cork drove the pre-existing crack to failure. The photograph on the upper left is of the failed bottle top. In this photo the origin and crack travel direction are indicated. Upper right is a top down photo of a cork from one of the unopened bottles. The impression made in the cork is from the rod that pushed the compressed cork into the bottle. One can see from the impression that the rod was not centered. This indicates that the subject bottle failed due to corking damage. This is a manufacturing defect.