What failure analysis can do for the machine designer,operator, diagnostician,and prognostician

A competent failure analyst can often determine whether the machine design was nominally adequate with a half hour time slot for visual examination. The use of macrofractography, a specialized type of visual examination, can allow trained personnel to determine whether improper alignment or component imperfections may have contributed to an unexpected failure. Case studies will be presented. Some examples of “learning from the graveyard” and how that can facilitate improvements in design, manufacturing, and operations will be described. Reprinted with permission from Proceeding of the 58th Meeting of the Society for Machinery Failure Prevention Technology, April 2004, p. 329.