The failure or fracture of a product or component as a result of a single event is known as mechanical overload. It is a common
failure mode
Failure causes are defects in design, process, quality, or part application, which are the underlying cause of a failure or which initiate a process which leads to failure. Where failure depends on the user of the product or process, then human er ...
. The terms are used in
forensic engineering
Forensic engineering has been defined as ''"the investigation of failures - ranging from serviceability to catastrophic - which may lead to legal activity, including both civil and criminal".'' It includes the investigation of materials, product ...
and
structural engineering
Structural engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering in which structural engineers are trained to design the 'bones and muscles' that create the form and shape of man-made structures. Structural engineers also must understand and cal ...
when analysing product failure. Failure may occur because either the product is weaker than expected owing to a
stress concentration
In solid mechanics, a stress concentration (also called a stress raiser or a stress riser) is a location in an object where the stress is significantly greater than the surrounding region. Stress concentrations occur when there are irregularitie ...
, or the applied load is greater than expected and exceeds the normal
tensile strength
Ultimate tensile strength (UTS), often shortened to tensile strength (TS), ultimate strength, or F_\text within equations, is the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before breaking. In brittle materials t ...
,
shear strength
In engineering, shear strength is the strength of a material or component against the type of yield or structural failure when the material or component fails in shear. A shear load is a force that tends to produce a sliding failure on a materia ...
or
compressive strength
In mechanics, compressive strength or compression strength is the capacity of a material or structure to withstand loads tending to reduce size (as opposed to tensile strength which withstands loads tending to elongate). In other words, compre ...
of the product.
See also
*
Forensic engineering
Forensic engineering has been defined as ''"the investigation of failures - ranging from serviceability to catastrophic - which may lead to legal activity, including both civil and criminal".'' It includes the investigation of materials, product ...
*
Stress analysis
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
*
Structural engineering
Structural engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering in which structural engineers are trained to design the 'bones and muscles' that create the form and shape of man-made structures. Structural engineers also must understand and cal ...
References
* ''Strength of Materials'', 3rd edition, Krieger Publishing Company, 1976, by Timoshenko S.,
* ''Forensic Materials Engineering: Case Studies'' by Peter Rhys Lewis, Colin Gagg, Ken Reynolds, CRC Press (2004).
Engineering failures
Reliability engineering
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