A View on the General Practice in Engineering Failure Analysis |
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Authors: | S K Bhaumik |
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Affiliation: | (1) Failure Analysis & Accident Investigation, Materials Science Division, National Aerospace Laboratories, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Bangalore, 560 017, India |
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Abstract: | Analysis of engineering failures is a complex process that requires information from personnel having expertise in many areas.
From the information gathered, a failure analyst tries to discover what was fundamentally responsible for the failure. This
fundamental cause is termed the “root cause” and helps in the determination of the sequence of events that led to the final
failure. Root cause analysis also helps in finding solutions to the immediate problem and provides valuable guidelines as
to what needs to be done to prevent recurrence of similar failures in future. However, experience suggests that most failure
analyses fall short of this goal. A significant number of failure analysts incorrectly use the term “root cause” when what
they really establish is the primary cause of failure or simple physical cause. This paper examines a few service failures
to demonstrate that the term root cause is not adequately understood. |
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Keywords: | Engineering failures Errors Failure analysis Root cause |
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