Read Consulting

Materials Failure Analysis and Process Engineering

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
FacebookTwitterLinkedinYouTubeRSS Feed

Home Featured

  • Experience
  • Failure Analysis
  • Processing
  • Laboratory
  • Blog
  • White Papers
You are here: Home / Failure Analysis / Sewer Pipe Failure Analysis

Sewer Pipe Failure Analysis

April 29, 2012 By Tom Read Leave a Comment

Failure expert performs a failure analysis on a cracked drain pipe removed from a high rise building. The pipe drained rainwater from the roof down to the ground This 2 3/4″ OD cast iron pipe began to fail after approximately 12 years of service. The upper left photo is an overview of a piece of the pipe. The predominant failure mode is a single linear crack parallel to the pipe axis. The crack opening is 1/4″ wide, and this opening indicates that there are residual tensile stresses in the pipe that are contributing to the failure. The photograph on the right show the fracture surface created when a section of the pipe is broken open. The outer layer of the pipe is white cast iron, and the interior portion of the pipe is gray cast iron. It is believed that because the outer portion of the pipe is chill cast, there are high residual casting stresses that are driving this stress corrosion failure.

Filed Under: Failure Analysis Tagged With: Cast Iron, Corrosion, Sewer Pipe

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Read Consulting Failure Analysis

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

  • Home
  • About
  • Experience
  • Expertise
  • Laboratory
  • Failure Analysis
  • Blog
  • White Papers

Read Consulting Failure Analysis

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

Connect With Read Consulting

FacebookTwitterLinkedinYouTubeRSS Feed

Registered Professional Engineer

Thomas L. Read, PhD., CEO
Registered Professional Engineer
Certificate No. MF002174
State of California.

Copyright © 2025 Read Consulting · Materials Failure Analysis And Process Engineering