Practical Plant Failure Analysis: A Guide to Understanding Machinery Deterioration and Improving Equipment Reliability

Component failures result from a combination of factors involving materials science, mechanics, thermodynamics, corrosion, and tribology. With the right guidance, you don’t have to be an authority in all of these areas to become skilled at diagnosing and preventing failures. Based on the author’s more than thirty years of experience, Practical Plant Failure Analysis: A Guide to Understanding Machinery Deterioration and Improving Equipment Reliability is a down-to-earth guide to improving machinery maintenance and reliability.

Illustrated with hundreds of diagrams and photographs, this book examines…

·         When and how to conduct a physical failure analysis

·         Basic material properties including heat treating mechanisms, work hardening, and the effects of temperature changes on material properties

·         The differences in appearance between ductile overload, brittle overload, and fatigue failures

·         High cycle fatigue and how to differentiate between high stress concentrations and high operating stresses

·         Low cycle fatigue and unusual fatigue situations

·         Lubrication and its influence on the three basic bearing designs

·         Ball and roller bearings, gears, fasteners, V-belts, and synchronous belts

Taking a detailed and systematic approach, Practical Plant Failure Analysis thoroughly explains the four major failure mechanisms—wear, corrosion, overload, and fatigue—as well as how to identify them. The author clearly identifies how these mechanisms appear in various components and supplies convenient charts that demonstrate how to identify the specific causes of failure.

Table of Contents

An Introduction to Failure Analysis 
The Causes of Failures 
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and Understanding the Roots 
The Human Error Study 
Latent Roots 
How the Multiple Roots Interact 
The Benefits and Savings 
Summary 
Some General Considerations on Failure Analysis 
The Failure Mechanisms: How They Occur and Their Appearances 
Summary 
Materials and the Sources of Stresses 
Stress 
Elasticity 
Plasticity 
Modulus of Elasticity (Young’s Modulus) 
Toughness 
Fatigue 
Some Basic Metallurgy 
Plain Carbon Steel: The Basics 
Understanding Steel Terminology and Material Designations 
Strengthening Metals 
Summary 
Overload Failures 
Introduction 
Unusual Conditions 
Summary 
Fatigue Failures (Part 1): The Basics 
Fatigue Failure Categories 
Fatigue (Part 2): Torsional, Low-Cycle, and Very-Low-Cycle Failure Influences and Fatigue Interpretations 
Torsional Fatigue Loads 
River Marks and Fatigue Crack Growth 
Plate and Rectangular Failures 
Fatigue Data Reliability and Corrosion Effect on Fatigue Strength 
Residual Stress 
Combined Fatigue and Steady State Stresses 
Base Material Problems 
Very-Low-Cycle and Low-Cycle Fatigue 
Very-Low-Cycle in Relatively Brittle Materials 
VLC in Ductile Materials 
Unusual Situations 
Failure Examples 
Understanding and Recognizing Corrosion 
Corrosion Rates 
pH Effects 
Effect of Available Oxygen 
Exposure Time and Flow Effects 
Temperature Effects 
The Eight Types of Corrosion 
Lubrication and Wear 
Three Types of Lubricated Contacts 
Manufacturing a Lubricant 
Greases 
Lubricant Applications 
Summary 
Defining Wear Mechanisms 
Summary Comments on Wear Failures 
Belt Drives 
Belt Design 
Belt Operation and Failure Causes 
Drive Efficiencies 
Belt Drive Failure Analysis Techniques 
Ball and Roller Bearings 
Bearing Materials 
Parts of a Bearing 
Cages 
Bearing Ratings and Equipment Design 
A Detailed Rolling Element Bearing Failure Analysis Procedure 
Roller and Tapered Roller Bearing Mounting Surfaces 
Summary 
Gears 
Gear Terminology 
Types of Gears 
Tooth Action 
Load and Stress Fluctuations 
Gear Materials 
Tooth Contact Patterns 
Backlash 
Design Life and Deterioration Mechanisms 
Through-Hardened Gear Deterioration Mechanisms 
Case-Hardened Gear Deterioration Mechanisms 
Analyzing Gear Failures 
Failure Examples 
Summary 
Fastener and Bolted Joint Failures 
How Bolts Work 
Fastener Failures 
Failure Examples 
Miscellaneous Machine Element Failures 
Chains 
Lip Seals 
Flexible Couplings 
Bibliography for Practical Plant Failure Analysis 
Index

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