Elegant degradation is a term used in engineering to describe what occurs to machines which are subject to constant, repetitive stress.
Externally, such a machine maintains the same appearance to the user, appearing to function properly. Internally, the machine slowly weakens over time. Eventually, unable to withstand the stress, it eventually breaks down.
Compared to
graceful degradation
Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more faults within some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the ...
, the operational quality does not decrease at all, but the breakdown may be just as sudden.
This term's meaning varies depending on context and field, and may not be strictly considered exclusive to engineering. For instance, this is used as a mechanism in the food industry as applied in the degradation of
lignin
Lignin is a class of complex organic polymers that form key structural materials in the support tissues of most plants. Lignins are particularly important in the formation of cell walls, especially in wood and bark, because they lend rigidity ...
,
cellulose
Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall ...
,
pentosan Pentosans are polymers composed of pentoses. In contrast to cellulose, which is composed of hexose (glucose) monomers, pentosans are derived from five-carbon sugars such as xylose. Pentosan-rich biomass is the precursor to furfural.
The pentosan co ...
, and
polymers
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part")
is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic an ...
, among others. The concept is also used to extract chemicals such as the elegant degradation of ''Paederus fuscipes'' to obtain
pederin
Pederin is a vesicant toxic amide with two tetrahydropyran rings, found in the haemolymph of the beetle genus '' Paederus'', including the Nairobi fly, belonging to the family Staphylinidae. It was first characterized by processing 25 million fi ...
and hemiacetal pseuodopederin. In this process degradation is induced by heat. A play with the same name also used it as a metaphor for the current state of the world.
See also
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Fail safe
In engineering, a fail-safe is a design feature or practice that in the event of a specific type of failure, inherently responds in a way that will cause minimal or no harm to other equipment, to the environment or to people. Unlike inherent safet ...
*
Fail soft
References
Fault tolerance
Mechanical engineering
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