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You are here: Home / Failure Analysis / Chair Failure Analysis, Plastic Lawn Chair

Chair Failure Analysis, Plastic Lawn Chair

January 11, 2016 By Tom Read Leave a Comment



A failed plastic chair was submitted to our failure analysis laboratory for examination. The right rear leg had broken off; however, the initial chair failure occurred on the left rear side. The left rear leg separated from the chair body due to poor bonding and molding porosity at the top of the leg. The failure resulted from manufacturing defects. On the upper right are photographs of the initial failure. There is porosity in the region where the leg is attached to the chair. In addition, the bond line is very narrow. Upper left is a photograph of the same region on an exemplar chair. One can see that the where the leg meets the chair there is severe undercutting. this creates a “stress riser” that reduces the joint strength.

Filed Under: Failure Analysis Tagged With: Chair, Lawn Chair, Plastic

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Read Consulting Failure Analysis

Thomas L. Read, PhD,
1435 Fulton Road Santa Rosa, CA
Phone: 707-494-5089
email: info@readconsulting.com

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Read Consulting Failure Analysis

Thomas L. Read, PhD,
1435 Fulton Road Santa Rosa, CA
Phone: 707-494-5089
email: info@readconsulting.com

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