Champagne Bottle Glass Failure Analysis

Glass failure expert performed a complete glass failure analysis on numerous champagne bottles that had failed in the riddling process. These bottles are used for riddling and they are made from a large amount of re-cycled glass. Several of these bottle failures initiated at a site that had a piece of unmelted cullet (Note: Cullet is ground glass that is re-melted). The photographs above show one such failure from two vantages. The "lump" of unmelted cullet was larger in diameter than the thickness of the glass (0.120"). The bottle manufactrurer was made aware of the manufacturing process problem and is in the process of fixing it. This is a manufacturing defect that could potentially become a product liability.

Glass Failure Analysis Of Bottle Defect

California Glass Expert Witness was assigned to determine the cause of failure of wine bottles at the manufacturing facility. During processing the bottles had a higher than normal failure rate. A root cause failure analysis was performed by the glass failure analysis expert witness. He inspected a large number of whole bottles and removed those with visible defects. In addition failure analysis was performed on those bottles that failed in manufacturing. Above left is a photomicrograph of a "crush" or "bruise" found on one of the unbroken bottles. This type of defect was found on several bottles. This bottle defect appears to be a result of impact damage. Curiously, there is an open surface bubble (i.e. seed) in the vacinity of the bruise. Upper right is a photomicrograph of the fracture surface of one of the failed bottles. The origin of this failure is at the same location on the bottle as the bruises found on whole bottles. In addition, this failure started at a small diameter bruise. The repetitive nature of the location and the nature of the defect indicates that this manufacturing defect is caused by the glass handling machinery either at the bottle manufacturing facility or at the bottling plant. Also, this damage is severe enough to cause bottle failure.

Glass Bottle Failure Analysis

Glass failure analysis expert performed a root cause failure analysis on a bottle failure. The cap on this bottle had not been removed. The failure analysis revealed a manufacturing defect on the bottle interior. On the upper left photo is a 30X photomicrograph of a portion of the origin on the fracture surface. The arrows show the travel direction of the crack exiting the origin. On the upper right is a 30X photonicrograph of the origin as it appears on the interior surface of the bottle. There is a "chip" associated with the origin; therefore, this is a product defect on the bottle interior.

Glass Failure Analysis of Wine Bottle

A recent failure analysis performed on a wine bottle revealed a manufacturing defect. The initiating manufacturing defect is a piece of unmelted glass (see photo above). More information on this can be found on my website: http://www.readconsulting.com/ There is a recent white paper that discusses the failure analysisi in detail.