Recognizing Common Failures

There are six types of metallurgical failures that affect fasteners. Each type has unique identifying physical characteristics. The following examples are designed to be used like a spark plug reading chart to help analyze fastener failures.

While few of us have access to sophisticated analysis equipment, a standard Bausch and Lomb three lens magnifying glass will generally show 98% of what we want to see. Several of the photos below have been taken utilizing a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and are presented to simply illustrate typical grain configurations after failure.