How One Failure Can Prevent Many

It’s absolutely true that a failure in the industry, unfortunate though it maybe, can actually prevent other failures. Imagine what would happen in a combat aircraft production industry. Supposing one of the turbine blades fractures and the broken pieces of the blade bring the engine to a deafening halt. The shattered blade pieces are analyzed in a materials testing laboratory for its contents. Another blade from the same batch is tested for creep and thermal stresses. A series of tests is run as a part of failure analysis to determine whether the failure was due to poor material, damage due to a foreign object or some extraneous causes. Here the facilities provided by materials testing laboratories could cover mechanical properties such as hardness, impact strength, UTS and bendability or creep resistance and metallurgical properties concerning the internal structure at the micro level.

Analytical equipment such as a Scanning Electron Microscope and Gas Chromatography could also be used in isolated cases while carrying out failure analysis of a failed component or part. Finally, the result of such analysis is expected to conclusively determine the actual cause of the failure. Failures are caused due to poor material, workmanship, design, maintenance or human error and in some cases due to an extraneous cause such as a foreign object. The result of the analysis will define how subsequent failures could be prevented. These measures could involve a change in material used or the design of the failed component among other options that may introduce special maintenance checks.

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