Failure Analysis

Failure analysis is required when a part, or an assembly, is stressed to the breaking limit: a piece of machinery becomes unbalanced, a hot spot develops in a fluid and a failure of the part, or assembly, ensues. The questions arise, why and how can it be remedied? All too often there are many plausible explanations, but only one that is the necessary cause, not just the sufficient cause. Applycon can help you sort through the saturation of data, or steer you in the direction of meaningful data collection.

Failure analysis is the key to redesigning failed parts and making them robust. When a part design has reached an optimal condition, where refinements no longer produce tangible improvement, then failure analysis would suggest a change in the process or environment that inhibits failure modes.

Forensics and Finite Element Analysis

In either case, whether part failure is due to a sub-optimal design, or the operating conditions are too harsh for the optimal design, failure analysis through FEA aids in the determination of the physical limits.

We can find the “smoking gun” through failure analysis that employs finite element analysis methodologies that explains all of the observed phenomena with our experienced approach to FEA problem solving. This includes many avenues of investigation that can best be described as good, old-fashioned intuition, the ability to ask the right questions, and a good understanding of the physical, interactive world.

Failures Become the Seeds of Success

After the “smoking gun” has been found and verified by comparisons to observations and empirical data, we can then evaluate fixes in the same FEA virtual world by employing the proven FEA methodology developed in the discovery phase to validate the proposed solutions, thereby comparing apples to apples.

This failure analysis process by means of FEA can lead to very interesting and unexpected solutions that were not intuitively obvious in the beginning, proving again how powerful and valuable finite element analysis can be.

See the examples page where some failure analysis cases are highlighted. Then contact Applycon to discuss your special needs for finite element analysis.