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Location: Detroit (the part with no rules or laws)
Posts: 5,677
Total Cats: 800
Anyone here deal with or know of someone / some company that does fracture analysis on hardware? We have recently had some hardware failure on some less than 3 year old bolts. Finding a solution is turning into a bit of a pissing match with lots of finger pointing.
For reference this is a coupler that holds together two pieces of sprinkler pipe. When it fails not only does it fall 30' where people are working it soaks everything and everyone in a 10 mile radius.
My theory is that when these were being installed the 250lb gorilla on the other end of the 1/2" "twist the world and **** off" electric impact gun gave it 387 to many ugga duggas which caused the stress fracture which finally gave up over time. I just need a way to prove it. Some bolts are bent they were so tight. Under the nut of the non broken bolt and clean metal, it's not an environment issue.
Anyone here deal with or know of someone / some company that does fracture analysis on hardware? We have recently had some hardware failure on some less than 3 year old bolts. Finding a solution is turning into a bit of a pissing match with lots of finger pointing.
For reference this is a coupler that holds together two pieces of sprinkler pipe. When it fails not only does it fall 30' where people are working it soaks everything and everyone in a 10 mile radius.
My theory is that when these were being installed the 250lb gorilla on the other end of the 1/2" "twist the world and **** off" electric impact gun gave it 387 to many ugga duggas which caused the stress fracture which finally gave up over time. I just need a way to prove it. Some bolts are bent they were so tight. Under the nut of the non broken bolt and clean metal, it's not an environment issue.
if you want accurate failure analysis make sure (as much as possible) no one/nothing touches the fracture surface.
That said, it might be cheaper (or easier time wise) to just torque the bolts until they snap on the ground and compare the damage. You can also measure the thread diameter, internal diameter, and length of the broken fasteners compared to nominal mfg. specs to see if you can't just show they were strained/elongated due to over-torquing on install .
Anyone here deal with or know of someone / some company that does fracture analysis on hardware? We have recently had some hardware failure on some less than 3 year old bolts. Finding a solution is turning into a bit of a pissing match with lots of finger pointing.
For reference this is a coupler that holds together two pieces of sprinkler pipe. When it fails not only does it fall 30' where people are working it soaks everything and everyone in a 10 mile radius.
My theory is that when these were being installed the 250lb gorilla on the other end of the 1/2" "twist the world and **** off" electric impact gun gave it 387 to many ugga duggas which caused the stress fracture which finally gave up over time. I just need a way to prove it. Some bolts are bent they were so tight. Under the nut of the non broken bolt and clean metal, it's not an environment issue.
The shiny metal in the middle was what just failed and is all that was holding it together. The corrosion you see on the rest of the body of the bolt indicates that part was broken long ago. Beyond that you will have to get a professional analysis done.
Location: Detroit (the part with no rules or laws)
Posts: 5,677
Total Cats: 800
Originally Posted by DNMakinson
They have done lots of work for us.
DNM
Thank you.
Originally Posted by chiefmg
The shiny metal in the middle was what just failed and is all that was holding it together. The corrosion you see on the rest of the body of the bolt indicates that part was broken long ago. Beyond that you will have to get a professional analysis done.
I agree 100% but it's my word vs theirs. They say the environment caused that, I say it was cracked on install.
I need to prove it, 3rd party / professionally.
Here is a 3/4" bolt that failed after 30 years. Impossible to tell when. But I'm sure it was during installation as well.
04-08-2021, 09:56 AM
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