PVC Plastic Pipe Failure Analysis

 Read Consulting a California failure analysis lab often performs plastic failure analysis. The failure analysis laboratory was asked to look a a broken 3" diameter PVC pipe. In this case, the plastic plumbing broke due to bending overload. At the origin the failure started as overload the white portion at the origin (see the 10 X micro graph). Under load the crack grew to a length that then turned into brittle failure.