The Heat Treat Doctor

Daniel H. Herring | 630-834-3017 | heattreatdoctor@industrialheating.com

Failure Triangles A Diagnostic Tool

v
voiding
product failure is the mission of everyone
involved
in engineering and manufacturing. What
i
must
the
part
do in service? is a question that needs
m
to
be
answered
when designing any component or
t
system. This leads to the establishment of the engineering requirements that will allow the product to perform its intended function.
In manufacturing we ask ourselves, How was or should the part
be made? Finally, understanding the circumstances under which a
part may or did fail is a necessary step in the
process. Lets learn more.
Failures can be traced to deciencies
in design, materials, processing, product
characteristics and quality, known and unknown application factors, and to human
error. Examples include excessive distortion, buckling, ductile or brittle fracture,
creep, rupture, cracking, fatigue, shock,
wear, corrosion, misalignment, poor geometrical design and literally hundreds of other factors. Whatever
the source, it is important to recognize that it is impossible to
separate the product from the process and, as such, material, design and processing applications are all interrelated.
When considering ways to prevent failures from occurring, one
determines the factors involved and whether they acted alone or
in combination with one another. We ask ourselves questions
such as Which of the various failure classications were the most
important contributors? and Was the design robust enough and
the safety factors properly chosen to meet the application rigors
imposed in service? Having a solid engineering design, coupled
with understanding the application, loading and design requirements, is key to avoiding failures. If failures do happen, we must
know what contributed to the damage.
Material

Environment

Service/
Application
end-use

Heat treatment

Service/Application End-Use Factors: What forces and conditions

a part is subjected to in service (Table 1), coupled with an understanding of those factors that might contribute to a failure, are
important considerations. Service conditions may change over
time, making this a difcult area to predict.
Material Factors: The type and form of material selected for a giv-

en application (Table 2) are critical to its performance in a given

application.
Table 1. Typical service application inuences
Issue

Examples

Overloading

Improper application of load (e.g., offset loads),

inadequate stress analysis, unexpected loads or
conditions

Operating/exposure
conditions

Temperature, vibration, impact, collision

Contamination

Chemical, mechanical, electrical

Maintenance or
repair issues

Improper maintenance, servicing or substitution of

improper parts

Type of forces

Bending, axial load, static load, fatigue

Human error

External inuence to the form-t-function

Table 2. Typical material inuences

Processing/
Manufacturing

Issue

Examples

Alloy design/
selection

Use of known engineering performance criteria

Form/condition

Forging, casting, bar, plate, wire

Microstructural
characteristics

Grain size, matrix microconstituents and secondary

phases

Chemistry

Primary compositional elements as well as residualelement effects

Properties

Mechanical (e.g., strength/toughness, fatigue strength),

physical or metallurgical (e.g., hardenability, formability,
machinability, weldability)

Internal quality

Inclusion types, amounts, sizes, morphologies and

distribution

Design

Fig. 1. External inuences: application factors (red); Internal

inuences: manufacturing factors (blue); Interrelationships (green)

18 May 2012 - IndustrialHeating.com

Failure Classications
There are a multitude of different types of failures and failure classications, each requiring a detailed analysis of both the external
inuences and internal inuences that contribute to either the
success or failure of a product. Failure triangles (Fig. 1) help us
visualize these basic classications and the types of interactions
that might take place when failures occur. In most cases, failures
happen when one or more of these variables act alone or in combination with one another. These include:

Table 3. Typical design inuences

Issue

Examples

Design factors

Stress state/type, loading (static or dynamic), stress

risers (geometrical and/or metallurgical)

Factor

Examples

Form, hardness, mechanical/physical/metallurgical

properties, cost

Humidity/moisture

Raw material

Environmental inuences accelerating failure due to

corrosion

Performance
characteristics
under specic
conditions

Chemical attack
Duty cycle, impact loading, offset loading,
misalignments, transient or unexpected loads,
environmental factors

Corrosion (e.g., stress, fatigue, microbial) or

embrittlement (e.g., hydrogen, liquid metal)

Lubrication

Viscosity, temperature, oxidation state, additive

condition

Safety factors

Anticipation of unforeseen service conditions

Table 4. Typical processing (manufacturing) inuences

Table 6. Typical environmental inuences

Wear

Erosion, galling, seizing, pitting

High temperature

Warping, creep, oxidation, localized melting

Site changes

Introduction of unexpected conditions such as vibration,

shock impact or exposure to external elements (e.g.,
radiation)

Issue

Examples

Equipment type
and availability

Use of wrong equipment or processes

Manufacturing
methods

Improper machining (feeds and speeds), improper

selection of pre- and post-heat treatment or other
manufacturing operations

sign (Table 3) and must be innately valid such that the expected
service life, service conditions and loading can be safely accommodated.

Assembly methods

Use of improper tools or poor techniques introducing

undesired stress into a component through forced tup, nicks, dings, etc.

Processing Factors: Manufacturing practices must be robust and

Welding or joining
methods

Introduction of residual stress, voids or cracks (surface

or subsurface) and/or undesirable microstructures

Improper heat
treatment

Case/core properties, introduction of distortion or

undesirable residual stress

Surface nish

Proper or improper use of grinding, polishing, peening

or coatings

Residual stress

Proper or improper use of heat treatment or surface

treatments (shot blasting/shot peening)

Design Factors: Fitness for purpose is the principal focus of de-

can also contribute to product failures if not properly performed

(Table 4).
Heat-Treating Factors: Heat-treatment issues can contribute to
failures in a number of ways (Table 5). Caution must be observed
to avoid blaming heat treatment for revealing a problem the root
cause of which may lie outside the contribution of heat treatment
to the condition observed.
Environmental Factors: Environmental-induced factors (Table 6)

Table 5. Typical heat-treatment inuences

Issue

Examples

Heating and/or
cooling

Shape changes, volumetric expansion

Changes in
residual stress
state

Differential expansion due to thermal gradients,

transformational (phase change) induced stress

Quenching

Improper or inadequate quenching (e.g., wrong

quenchant, poor agitation, improper equipment design)
leading to distortion and/or cracking

Hardness

Improper hardness for a given application

Microstructure

Issues related to or arising from grain growth,

microcracking, microsegregation, internal oxidation,
alloy depletion, formation of high-temperature
transformation products, decarburization, retained
austenite, precipitation of unwanted phases and
excessive carbide formation

Post-heattreatment methods

Improper post-heat-treatment operations such as

grinding, straightening, shot blast/shot peening or
plating

Equipment/process
selection

Use of the wrong equipment or process introducing

unwanted variability

20 May 2012 - IndustrialHeating.com

can play a signicant role in eld failures and are one of the most
difcult aspects to anticipate or control.
Final Thoughts
Accurate record keeping and careful documentation of failures if/
when they occur are of critical importance to assist in determining the root cause of a particular product failure and to avoid its
reoccurrence in the future.
More to Come
Failure triangles and their interactions will be the subject of a future article (Reference 1). Stay tuned. IH
References
1. Darragh, Craig and Herring, Daniel H., Failure Analysis A Metallurgists Perspective, in preparation.
2. ASM Handbook, Volume 11, Failure Analysis and Prevention, ASM International, 2000.
3. Analyzing Failures of Metal Components, Part One & Part Two, Key to
Metals (www.keytometals.com)
4. Herring, D. H., The Dos and Donts of Field Failure Analysis, Industrial Heating, January 2006.
5. Herring, D. H., The Role of Metallurgical Analysis in Solving HeatTreat Problems, Industrial Heating, May 2011.