Glass Failure Expert Performs a Failure Analysis Broken Soda Bottle; The subject bottle had not yet been opened; it failed as it was being loaded into a cooler. The failure analysis photograph above shows the fracture origin. It shows that this bottle failed as a result of a defect on the interior wall of […]
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 in my failure analysis blog There is a recent white paper that discusses the failure analysisi in detail.
Weld Failure on Crane
While studying a weld failure on a tower crane section, it was discovered that the weep(drain) holes were plugged. As a result, there was standing water that froze and split the weld. The failure mode was ductile overload that started at a stress concentrator created by the weld meniscus The destructive force is created by […]
Evaluation of Hurricane Windows
Window Expert has been involved in a large case involving the failure of hurricane windows. These windows are made from two layers of glass with a thick layer (0.05″) of a flexible polymer.The lesson from this effort has been that the polymers selected for producing windows that meet Miami Dade County requirements must have the […]
Loading Dock Safety
Safety Engineer Discusses Loading Dock Safety: Portable Loading Ramps: The attaching mechanism for a loading ramp should be readily visible to the user. If not, he can think that the ramp is properly attached and proceed to use it. This was the case recently when a driver was using a ramp, and it fell injuring […]