Aluminum failures

Some naturally soft mains waters may be unsuitable because they contain dissolved copper ions that could lead to aluminum failure. Poor buffer control can also cause attack. 

Aluminum Failures. Many Diesel engine cooling systems... 

Aluminum failure predictor. Human experts sort evidence by experience. Based on their assessment of a given piece of information, experts will form an initial hypothesis and determine what additional information or tests are required to prove or disprove this initial hypothesis. Further information normally raises more questions, and experts may go through several iterations before feeling confident that the causes and mechanisms of a failure have really been determined with an acceptable degree of confidence. The high-strength aluminum alloy Failure Predictor mimics human analysis from the general to the specific. 

The principal type of shear test specimen used in the industry, the lap shear specimen, is 2.54 cm wide and has a 3.23-cm overlap bonded by the adhesive. Adherends are chosen according to the industry aluminum for aerospace, steel for automotive, and wood for constmction appHcations. Adhesive joints made in this fashion are tested to failure in a tensile testing machine. The temperature of test, as weU as the rate of extension, are specified. Results are presented in units of pressure, where the area of the adhesive bond is considered to be the area over which the force is appHed. Although the 3.23-cm ... 

Product Utilization. The principal appHcation for chromium phosphate coatings is as a paint base for painted aluminum extmsions and aluminum beverage can stock. In these appHcations, extremely demanding performance criteria are met by the chromium phosphate conversion coatings. As an example, the Architectural Aluminum Manufacturer s Association Voluntary Specification 605.2-92 requires humidity and salt spray testing for 3000 hours and allows only minimal incidence of paint failure after testing (26). 

Because pure aluminum is n picaUy too soft to be drawn into a fine wine, it is often alloyed with 1° o sihcon or 1° o magnesium to provide a sofid solution-strengthening mechanism. The resistance of Al-1° o Mg wine to fatigue failure and to degradation of ultimate strength after exposure to elevated temperatures is superior to that of Al—1° o Si wine. 

Calcium—Silicon. Calcium—silicon and calcium—barium—siUcon are made in the submerged-arc electric furnace by carbon reduction of lime, sihca rock, and barites. Commercial calcium—silicon contains 28—32% calcium, 60—65% siUcon, and 3% iron (max). Barium-bearing alloys contains 16—20% calcium, 9—12% barium, and 53—59% sihcon. Calcium can also be added as an ahoy containing 10—13% calcium, 14—18% barium, 19—21% aluminum, and 38—40% shicon These ahoys are used to deoxidize and degasify steel. They produce complex calcium shicate inclusions that are minimally harm fill to physical properties and prevent the formation of alumina-type inclusions, a principal source of fatigue failure in highly stressed ahoy steels. As a sulfide former, they promote random distribution of sulfides, thereby minimizing chain-type inclusions. In cast iron, they are used as an inoculant. 

Polymerization of ethylene oxide can occur duriag storage, especially at elevated temperatures. Contamination with water, alkahes, acids, amines, metal oxides, or Lewis acids (such as ferric chloride and aluminum chloride) can lead to mnaway polymerization reactions with a potential for failure of the storage vessel. Therefore, prolonged storage at high temperatures or contact with these chemicals must be avoided (9). 

Flexible Metal Hose Deeply corrugated thin brass, bronze, Monel, aluminum, and steel tubes are covered with flexible braided-wire jackets to form flexible metal hose. Both tube and braid are brazed or welded to pipe-thread, union, or flanged ends. Failures are often the result of corrosion of the braided-wire jacket or of a poor... 

Liquid-Metal Corrosion Liquid metals can also cause corrosion failures. The most damaging are liqmd metals which penetrate the metal along grain boundaries to cause catastrophic failure. Examples include mercury attack on aluminum alloys and attack of stainless steels by molten zinc or aluminum. A fairly common problem occurs when galvanized-structural-steel attachments are welded to stainless piping or eqmpment. In such cases it is mandatoty to remove the galvanizing completely from the area which will be heated above 260°C (500°F). 

The corrosion resistance of aluminum and its alloys tends to be veiy sensitive to trace contamination. Veiy small amounts of metalhc mer-cuiy, heavy-metal ions, or chloride ions can frequently cause rapid failure under conditions which otherwise would be fuUy acceptable. 

Rider and Amott were able to produce notable improvements in bond durability in comparison with simple abrasion pre-treatments. In some cases, the pretreatment improved joint durability to the level observed with the phosphoric acid anodizing process. The development of aluminum platelet structure in the outer film region combined with the hydrolytic stability of adhesive bonds made to the epoxy silane appear to be critical in developing the bond durability observed. XPS was particularly useful in determining the composition of fracture surfaces after failure as a function of boiling-water treatment time. A key feature of the treatment is that the adherend surface prepared in the boiling water be treated by the silane solution directly afterwards. Given the adherend is still wet before immersion in silane solution, the potential for atmospheric contamination is avoided. Rider and Amott have previously shown that such exposure is detrimental to bond durability. 

Sol-gel film.s deposited on a grit-blasted aluminum surface give performance close to PAA bonds (Fig. 22) with generally cohesive failures observed in wedge tests. Given that one application of this treatment is repair, the performance is... 

In-service issues. As mentioned previously, many early service failures of bonded structure were due to adherend surface treatments that were unstable in long-term exposure to water. A majority of these problems were resolved by the adoption of surface treatments such as chromic and phosphoric acid anodize for aluminum details. The remaining few were alleviated by the adoption of phosphoric acid anodized honeycomb core and foaming adhesives resistant to water passage. Other service durability issues such as the cracking of brittle potting compound used to seal honeycomb sandwich assemblies, and subsequent delamination, have been minor in scope. 

Failure to consider listed chemical qualifier. Aluminum, vanadium and zinc are qualified as fume or dust." Isopropyl alcohol and saccharin have manufacturing qualifiers. Ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate are qualified as solutions. Phosphorus is qualified as yellow or white. Asbestos is qualified as friable. Only chemicals meeting the qualifiers require reporting under section 313 and should be reported on Form R with the appropriate qualifier in parenthesis. 

Fig. 2.19. A measured and calculated velocity versus time measurement is shown for an aluminum plate that has experienced spall failure. After the release of velocity the second and third increases in velocity represent wave reverberations within the spalled plate (after Davison and Graham [79D01]).

Corrugated steel or aluminum Connection failure followed by buckling 0.07-0.14 1-2... 

Corrugated steel or aluminum paneling. Connection failure, followed by buckling. 1.0-2.0... 

For most practical purposes, the onset of plastic deformation constitutes failure. In an axially loaded part, the yield point is known from testing (see Tables 2-15 through 2-18), and failure prediction is no problem. However, it is often necessary to use uniaxial tensile data to predict yielding due to a multidimensional state of stress. Many failure theories have been developed for this purpose. For elastoplastic materials (steel, aluminum, brass, etc.), the maximum distortion energy theory or von Mises theory is in general application. With this theory the components of stress are combined into a single effective stress, denoted as uniaxial yielding. Tlie ratio of the measure yield stress to the effective stress is known as the factor of safety. 

It is important to recognize that all materials will have problems in certain environments, whether they are plastics, metals, aluminum, or something else. For example, the chemical effect and/or corrosion of metal surfaces has a damaging effect on both the static and dynamic strength properties of metals because it ultimately creates a reduced cross-section that can lead to eventual failure. The combined effect of corrosion and stress on strength characteristics is called stress corrosion. When the load is variable, the com-... 

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