Decoding Disasters E-Book

Anthony Sofronas

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 333

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Understanding failures and disasters using case studies and simple engineering techniques

Decoding Disasters provides illustrated failure case histories on a multitude of technologies and shows how engineering analysis can explain and help professionals understand them. For each case, the analysis technique is included so that the reader can adapt and apply it to their own situation. Different techniques are developed to show how the methods can be applied in various disciplines. This book guides readers to determine what likely occurred in each case with a minimum amount of data and without speculating.

Each example in this book states the problem, theorizes a conceptual cause, verifies the cause by analysis (i.e. a mathematical model) and actual data, shows the use of the various engineering equations, and documents a solution.

In this comprehensive guide, readers will learn about:

• Viewing disasters not solely as a matter of emergency response, but also more holistically as social constructs between natural extremes, human populations, and the built environment
• Economic, environmental, and human impacts of disasters
• How growth calculations can evaluate the past and present and be applied to likely future events
• Disasters stemming from shortcuts in the design process to meet the demands and needs of society

This book is an excellent learning resource not only for practicing engineers, but also government and regulatory officials who can enact changes to prevent future repeat failures.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Methods for Analyzing Failures

1.1 Mathematical Modeling

1.2 Methods for Solving Problems

1.3 The Crack Growth Equation

1.4 Failure of Carbon Fibers in Compressive Fatigue

1.5 Failure of Carbon Fiber, Titanium, and Steel in Compressive Fatigue

1.6 Cycles to Failure for Carbon Fiber Laminate and Stainless Steel

1.7 Ockham’s Razor

Chapter 2: Industrial Mechanical Equipment Failures

2.1 Failure in a Large Stirred Processing Reactor

2.2 Stress on Spline Shaft Due to Extruder Wear

2.3 Ship Propeller Impact Damage

2.4 How a Turbojet Aircraft Engine Works and Fails

2.5 Failure of a G.E. CF-6-6 Turbofan Disk on a DC-10

2.6 Loss of a Turbofan Blade

Chapter 3: Industrial Vibration Failures

3.1 An Actual Aircraft Engine-Gearbox-Propeller Torsional System

3.2 Coupling Failure: Motor-Gearbox-High Speed Compressor System

3.3 Slip-stick Phenomena

3.4 Windshield Wiper Chatter Problem

3.5 Catastrophic Failure of a Vibrating Centrifuge Deck

Chapter 4: Catastrophic Implosion of the Deep Sea Submersible Titan

4.1 Titan Deep Diving Vessel Implosion

4.2 Evidence from Titan Debris

4.3 The Titan Submersible Design

Chapter 5: Potential Earth Catastrophes

5.1 What Is the Chance the 2029 Asteroid Apophis Will Impact Earth?

5.2 What Damage Would an Asteroid Impact Such as Apophis Cause?

5.3 What If the Chelyabinsk Meteor Had Impacted Earth?

5.4 Preventing an Asteroid from Impacting Earth

5.5 The Damage Potential of Solar Flares

Chapter 6: Flight Dynamics and Major Disasters

6.1 How Does an Aircraft Fly?

6.2 Stalls and Flat Spins and Crash of Flight 2283

6.3 How Can a Drone Helicopter Fly on Mars?

6.4 Disappearance of Malaysian Flight MH 370

6.5 Why Did the Nose Wheel Collapse on a Boeing 767?

6.6 What Happened to the Space Shuttle Columbia?

6.7 Why Did the Door Blow Out of a Boeing 737 Max 9?

6.8 Why Did Hail Destroy the Nose of an Airbus 320?

6.9 Damage Due to Tire Falling Off Boeing 777 Aircraft

6.10 How Does a Hummingbird Fly?

6.11 How Do Fish Swim?

6.12 Tourism Helicopter Crashes into Hudson River

6.13 More Data on the Crash of Bell 206L into the Hudson

6.14 Air India Flight 171 Crash

Chapter 7: Impact Disasters

7.1 Average and Peak Impact Force

7.2 Examining the Head-on Impact of Two Vehicles

7.3 Design Use of the Head-on Impact Equation

7.4 Can a Water Filled Membrane Bag Be Used as a Safety Device?

7.5 What Happens When a Turkey Vulture Hits a Car?

7.6 High Speed Closing Mechanism

7.7 Analyzing the Force of a Sudden Impact

7.8 Getting Hit on the Head with a Beer Bottle

7.9 Deep Penetrating Bomb

7.10 Precision Immobility Technique or (PIT)

Chapter 8: Structural Failures

8.1 What Causes Tower Cranes to Collapse?

8.2 Walkway Collapse

8.3 Bridge Collapse with Ship Impact

8.4 Collapse of Electrical Power Transmission Towers

8.5 The Progressive Failure Collapse of Structurally Deficient Buildings

8.6 High-voltage Tower Failures and Vortices

8.7 Are Swaying Skyscrapers Dangerous?

Chapter 9: Concerns Relating to Heat Transfer

9.1 Elevated Temperature in a Vehicle

9.2 How Long Should It Take to Heat My Home?

9.3 Fireplace Heat Transfer

9.4 Raising the Air Temperature of a Room with a Gas Fireplace

Chapter 10: Catastrophic Explosions

10.1 Can a Kitchen Full of Natural Gas Destroy a Home?

10.2 Would the Home Water Heater Explode?

10.3 Would the Pressure Cooker Actually Explode?

10.4 How Does an Underground Pipeline Explode?

10.5 Explosive Effect of a Volume of Enclosed Vapor

Chapter 11: Natural Disasters

11.1 How Are Tornados Formed?

11.2 Force of a Tornado

11.3 How Are Hurricanes Formed?

11.4 The Effect of a Hurricane’s Storm Surge

11.5 Determining a Hurricane’s Path

11.6 The Lateral Sliding and Vertical Uplift Earthquake Models

11.7 Yellowstone Caldera Is Rising, When Will It Erupt?

11.8 Why the Yellowstone Caldera Plate Surface Doesn’t Get Hot

11.9 The Next Great Tsunami

11.10 What Causes Straight-line Wind Damage?

11.11 Will the Tilting Tree Uproot?

11.12 Why Didn’t the Tree Limb Break?

11.13 Why Did the Tree Splinter in a Hurricane?

11.14 Some Final Thoughts About Trees

Chapter 12: Catastrophes Relating to Flooding Disasters

12.1 A Simple Explanation of Flooding Using a Bathtub Analogy

12.2 Why Didn’t My Home Flood?

12.3 Why Does Lake Houston Rise Above the Spillway?

12.4 Kingwood Texas Flooding May 1–3, 2024

12.5 What Caused the Street to Flood

12.6 Sudden Flooding of Kingwood Drive

12.7 Catastrophic Flooding of a River

Chapter 13: Probabilities

13.1 Are We All Alone in the Universe?

13.2 What Is the Probability of a Piece of Machinery Failing This Year?

Chapter 14: Why Question the Ingenuity of Humans?

14.1 How Did the Egyptians Transport 75-ton Granite Stones from the Quarry?

14.2 How Were the Pyramids Built?

14.3 How Do the Ancient Move Mega-blocks on Hard Land?

14.4 Using a Human-powered Crane to Lift Mega-blocks

14.5 Moving Huge Pyramid Stones by Rolling

14.6 Moving Large Blocks with Rollers on Rails

Chapter 15: Some Unusual Questions Answered

15.1 Why Does a Whip Make a Loud Crack Sound?

15.2 My Wife’s Broken Chair and a Failure Cause

15.3 Zero Is Equal to One or Mathematics Can Trick You

15.4 Why Won’t My Truck Start?

15.5 Force of a Hardball on a Bat and Hand

15.6 Why Doesn’t My Hand Hurt When I Hit a Nail With a Hammer?

15.7 Pop-out Strength of High-rise Windows

Chapter 16: Engineering Equations Used in This Book Explained

16.1 Force Balance

16.2 Inertial Law or Newton’s Second Law

16.3 Centrifugal Force

16.4 Potential Energy (PE)

16.5 Kinetic Energy (KE)

16.6 Energy Balances in Mechanical

16.7 Energy Balance in Heat Transfer

16.8 Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

16.9 The Specific Heat Equation

16.10 Shear Force and Pressures

16.11 Energy Caused by Frictional Rubbing and Shearing

16.12 The Momentum Equation and the Conservation of Momentum

16.13 Probability of Something Occurring in a Given Time

16.14 Developing Tsunami Surface Velocity and Wave Height

16.15 A Glancing Hail Strike

16.16 Frequency of a Pendulum

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Chapter 1

Figure 1.1.1 Modeling a pressure explosion.

Figure 1.3.1 Crack growth.

Figure 1.4.1 Carbon fiber composite failure.

Figure 1.5.1 Failure hydraulic test of tubes.

Figure 1.6.1 Compression buckling of carbon fibers.

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1.1 Stirred reactor with mixer inside coils.

Figure 2.1.2 Cracked supports and loose bolt forces.

Figure 2.1.3 Battered 5/8 A193-B8 from a support clip.

Figure 2.1.4 Distorted plate/support and crack.

Figure 2.2.1 Locked-up spline due to wear.

Figure 2.3.1 Propeller impact model.

Figure 2.3.2 Simplified impact system.

Figure 2.4.1 Turbojet engine cowling.

Figure 2.4.2 Turbofan jet operation.

Figure 2.5.1 Model of DC-10 burst fan disk.

Figure 2.5.2 Incremental cycles to grow a crack.

Figure 2.6.1 One blade of low-pressure compressor stage.

Figure 2.6.2 Cycles to grow a crack in CFM 56-7B fan blade.

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1.1 Aircraft system.

Figure 3.1.2 Equivalent system to analyze.

Figure 3.2.1 Original motor-gearbox-compressor system.

Figure 3.2.2 Equivalent geared system.

Figure 3.3.1 Pushing a box on the floor.

Figure 3.3.2 Friction velocity effect.

Figure 3.4.1 Windshield wiper chatter model.

Figure 3.5.1 Centrifuge design.

Figure 3.5.2 Vibrating centrifuge deck.

Figure 3.5.3 Development of a vibratory beat.

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1.1 Bathyscaphe pressure sphere.

Figure 4.1.2 Submersible Titan.

Figure 4.1.3 Collapse sphere under external pressure.

Figure 4.3.1 Titan submersible model.

Chapter 5

Figure 5.1.1 Earth with meteor passing.

Figure 5.2.1 Meteor impact model.

Figure 5.2.2 Damage potential of Apophis.

Figure 5.4.1 Asteroid deflection model.

Figure 5.4.2 Bump into new orbits.

Figure 5.5.1 Coronal mass ejection, not to scale.

Chapter 6

Figure 6.1.1 Lift model.

Figure 6.2.1 Stall of Cessna 172.

Figure 6.2.2 Stall spin and flat spin.

Figure 6.3.1 Ingenuity Martian drone helicopter.

Figure 6.4.1 At start over Indian Ocean after deviation.

Figure 6.4.2 Fuel remaining and debris.

Figure 6.5.1 Over-center locking mechanism.

Figure 6.6.1 Impact of foam on shuttle.

Figure 6.7.1 Door plug 737.

Figure 6.8.1 Radome damage.

Figure 6.10.1 Hummer visits us for breakfast.

Figure 6.11.1 The dynamics of simple fish motion.

Figure 6.12.1 Falling helicopter.

Figure 6.13.1 Rotor lockup bicycle analogy.

Figure 6.13.2 Main rotor lockup model.

Chapter 7

Figure 7.1.1 Ball impact.

Figure 7.1.2 Velocity over deformation time.

Figure 7.2.1 Head on impact.

Figure 7.2.2 Collision of two vehicles.

Figure 7.4.1 Model of mass impacting water filled membrane.

Figure 7.6.1 Fast acting mechanism model.

Figure 7.7.1 Impact model.

Figure 7.8.1 Hit on head with a bottle.

Figure 7.9.1 Deep penetrating bomb model.

Figure 7.10.1 Pit maneuver.

Figure 7.10.2 Analytical model of PIT maneuver.

Chapter 8

Figure 8.1.1 Loads on tower crane.

Figure 8.2.1 Walkway bridge failure.

Figure 8.3.1 Bridge impact with container ship model.

Figure 8.4.1 Transmission tower failure.

Figure 8.4.2 Buckling experiment.

Figure 8.5.1 Building collapse model.

Figure 8.6.1 Insulator model.

Figure 8.7.1 Reaction force model.

Figure 8.7.2 Effect of a wind gust on building.

Chapter 9

Figure 9.1.1 Vehicle heat model.

Figure 9.3.1 Fireplace distance.

Figure 9.4.1 Block of hot fireplace heat.

Chapter 10

Figure 10.2.1 Water heater explosion model.

Figure 10.3.1 Pressure cooker with weight safety valve.

Figure 10.4.1 Underground pipeline explosion.

Chapter 11

Figure 11.1.1 Forming of a tornado.

Figure 11.2.1 Tornado models.

Figure 11.3.1 Typical hurricane cloud.

Figure 11.3.2 Earth wind and speed.

Figure 11.3.3 Eyewall of a hurricane.

Figure 11.4.1 Home at ground level and on stilts.

Figure 11.5.1 The effect of pressure on a hurricane.

Figure 11.5.2 Some factors affecting the path of a hurricane.

Figure 11.5.3 Hurricane Helene on September 25, 2024.

Figure 11.5.4 Hurricane Milton on October 6, 2024.

Figure 11.6.1 San Andreas fault.

Figure 11.6.2 Lateral sliding and uplift block models.

Figure 11.7.1 Forces holding and lifting the caldera.

Figure 11.7.2 Floating caldera plate model.

Figure 11.8.1 Yellowstone floating Caldera.

Figure 11.9.1 Model of tsunami.

Figure 11.9.2 Representation of Cascadia subduction zone.

Figure 11.10.1 Straight-line wind formation.

Figure 11.11.1 Wind model.

Figure 11.11.2 Tilt model.

Figure 11.12.1 Picture of tree limb being analyzed.

Figure 11.12.2 Limb to be modeled.

Figure 11.13.1 Uprooted tree and splintered tree.

Figure 11.13.2 Torsional and bending model.

Figure 11.13.3 Termite nest in trunk.

Figure 11.13.4 Bending load due to wind and failure area.

Figure 11.14.1 Dirty side of Hurricane Beryl through Houston, Texas.

Chapter 12

Figure 12.1.1 Bathtub flooding model.

Figure 12.1.2 Lake or river flooding model.

Figure 12.2.1 Lake Houston and tributaries.

Figure 12.2.2 Number of gates to lower pool level.

Figure 12.3.1 Flow from Lake Houston dam.

Figure 12.3.2 Spillway weir flow.

Figure 12.5.1 Flooded area in front of homes.

Figure 12.5.2 Flooded basin area.

Figure 12.6.1 Basin flooding for analytical model.

Figure 12.7.1 River basin flooding model.

Chapter 14

Figure 14.1.1 Floating granite stone on boat barge.

Figure 14.2.1 Pyramid internal spiral.

Figure 14.2.2 Sketch of wall painting of Djehutihotep.

Figure 14.2.3 Force to pull block.

Figure 14.3.1 Sledge, block, and levers.

Figure 14.4.1 Pulling block up pyramid.

Figure 14.4.2 Use of “cribbing” in lifting.

Figure 14.5.1 Wheeling a column.

Figure 14.5.2 Rolling compared to dragging.

Figure 14.5.3 The difference in rolling and dragging.

Figure 14.6.1 Moving a block on multiple rollers.

Chapter 15

Figure 15.1.1 Dynamics of a whip crack.

Figure 15.2.1 Similar to broken chair.

Figure 15.2.2 Rivet that fell out.

Figure 15.2.3 Rivet surface and bending.

Figure 15.6.1 Mathematical model of hammer hitting nail.

Figure 15.6.2 Penetration of nail due to hammer.

Chapter 16

Figure 16.3.1 Ball on a string.

Figure 16.3.2 Centrifugal force derivation.

Figure 16.7.1 Heat traveling down rod.

Figure 16.8.1 Apple pulled toward Earth.

Figure 16.10.1 Volcano plug blowing off.

Figure 16.11.1 Knife being sharpened.

Figure 16.11.2 Single-tool shear plane cutting model.

Figure 16.12.1 One use of conservation of momentum.

Figure 16.14.1 Ocean floor displacement model.

Figure 16.15.1 Deflected hail.

Figure 16.16.1 The pendulum frequency model.

List of Tables

Chapter 1

Table 1.5.1 Sphere failure data.

Chapter 2

Table 2.1.1 Data for model and results.

Table 2.2.1 Case histories failed splines.

Table 2.3.1 Data for model.

Table 2.5.1 Stress and crack growth data.

Table 2.6.1 Data for blade stress model.

Chapter 3

Table 3.1.1 Critical speeds rigid system .

Table 3.1.2 Data for torsional analysis.

Table 3.2.1 Coupling failure data.

Table 3.3.1 Slip-stick, observations, and corrections.

Table 3.4.1 Internet search comments.

Chapter 5

Table 5.1.1 Data for Apophis model.

Table 5.2.1 Explosive and impact events.

Table 5.4.1 Data for Apophis model.

Table 5.5.1 Scale of geomagnetic storms.

Chapter 6

Table 6.7.1 Results of calculations.

Table 6.9.1 Tire impact damage.

Chapter 7

Table 7.4.1 Analysis 60-ft and 6-ft jump on balloon.

Table 7.7.1 Data from tests.

Table 7.8.1 Data for model.

Table 7.9.1 Variables in model.

Chapter 9

Table 9.2.1 Data for time to heat room.

Table 9.3.1 Calculated temperature.

Chapter 10

Table 10.4.1 Pipeline data.

Table 10.5.1 Equivalent TNT and explosion results.

Chapter 11

Table 11.2.1 The Fuji scale for determining tornado magnitudes.

Table 11.2.2 Some validation data.

Table 11.3.1 Saffir–Simpson hurricane guide.

Table 11.6.1 Data and model results.

Table 11.6.2 Effect of Richter magnitude.

Table 11.7.1 Data for equations.

Chapter 12

Table 12.2.1 Flows and rise of Lake Houston.

Table 12.2.2 Kingwood elevations and status during Hurricane Harvey.

Table 12.4.1 Lake Houston pool height May 1–4, 2024.

Table 12.5.1 Flow model results.

Table 12.6.1 Basin flooding model.

Chapter 15

Table 15.4.1 Possible fuel causes.

Chapter 16

Table 16.9.1 Units used in specific heat equation.

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Begin Reading

Index

End User License Agreement

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Decoding Disasters

An Engineering Approach to Understanding Technical Failures and Natural Catastrophes

Anthony Sofronas, D. Eng

Copyright © 2026 by John Wiley & Sons Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar technologies.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Sofronas, Anthony author | John Wiley & Sons publisher

Title: Decoding disasters : an engineering approach to understanding technical failures and natural catastrophes / Anthony Sofronas, D. Eng

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons Inc, [2026] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2025021121 | ISBN 9781394319503 hardback | ISBN 9781394319527 adobe pdf | ISBN 9781394319510 epub | ISBN 9781394319534 ebook

Subjects: LCSH: Structural failures | Natural disasters | Disasters

Classification: LCC TA656 S66 2026 | DDC 624.1/71—dc23/eng/20250717 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025021121

Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Image: © Pakin Songmor/Getty Images, Wiley, concept by Anthony Sofronas

To My Lord Who Made This All Possible

Introduction:“One of the Most Valued Talents Is Being a Successful Problem Solver”

During my career in engineering, I’ve used engineering methods to answer questions presented to me. In industry the questions were why something had failed, which usually required using the scientific method, asking questions, examining the data, and developing and validating an analytical model based on the theorized cause. This helped determine the actual cause.

I was also asked questions that weren’t work related. For example, in 2023, I was asked, Why did I think the Titan submersible had imploded? In 2017, my community asked why their homes had flooded? In 1989, I was asked why did I think the United Flight 232, DC-10 aircraft engine exploded, which resulted in a tragic crash? In 2003, I wanted to know the force a 1-lb piece of Styrofoam had hit the ill-fated Shuttle Columbia with. Some were saying it was negligible, which didn’t make sense to me.

I’m a curious and impatient fellow who enjoys doing research and using analytical methods to solve problems. Waiting 2 years for a government report on the failure cause isn’t something I care to do. Listening to the uninformed speculating on the cause is difficult for engineers to endure. Usually there is enough information available, which can result in an educated answer and not just a guess. Of course the final failure report will be much more accurate. It will contain information that wasn’t available at the time of the event. However, in such reports, the true cause may be hidden. Legal repercussions, negatively influencing future funding, embarrassment to those on the investigation team are a few reasons. Sometimes those responsible for wrong decisions are on the team.

During my industrial life, having a piece of equipment out of service can cost a company hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. An expedient and safe determination on the cause of the failure and implementation of a solution are paramount.

Solving many of the type problems illustrated in this book allowed me to verify my analysis against the final technical report or the success of the repair. The techniques used came in handy in solving industrial problems and allowed me to minimize my technical risk-taking.

The goal of this book is to show the power of performing calculations to answer questions. Saying “I don’t know now but will try to find out!” is always a welcome response to questions. I also hope that this book is entertaining, educational, and might help the readers in their careers or in making their career choices.

Acknowledgments

Unlike my other publications, which acknowledged those living who helped me in my career, this book recognizes those who are now with our Lord. These individuals assisted me in solving many problems and are greatly missed. Without them much of what I have done won’t have been possible. The listing is alphabetical and in no way favors anyone. Each of these friends has memorable careers and lives that are worthy of their own books.

Mr. Charlie Arnold was a very talented machine shop supervisor who could come up with unique solutions to difficult problems. He smoothed out my introduction to some of the more “difficult field supervisors” in a petrochemical plant. Charlie and I became friends because we respected each other’s abilities and trusted each other.

Mr. Heinz Bloch for all of his excellent work in manufacturing and for supporting me in my works. He provided me with the opportunity to be an associate editor for a magazine, to present in-plant seminars along with recommendations to write certain books. After my retirement he helped me in my consulting career. He truly understood what I was trying to do with my simplified analysis techniques.

Mr. Marty Hapeman, a truly gifted individual and engineer and my first mentor, guided me in my first job at General Electric. Trying to develop the exceptional analytical abilities that Marty had was something that provided the incentive to obtain my doctoral degree and to develop my analytical niche in engineering. While I never achieved his abilities, my niche of simplified analysis methods allowed me the opportunity to explore many areas in science.

Mr. Arlon Hokett, a very knowledgeable and capable technical person, helped me understand extrusion equipment and how to communicate with plant personnel. Arlon would never just replace parts on a failed machine such as a pump, mixer, or extruder. He would always try to determine why it failed and find a way to prevent it.

Dr. Khalil Taraman, my doctoral adviser, graciously guided me through the doctoral dissertation process. He provided me the opportunity to develop courses and also teaching opportunities in a university.

Mr. Rich Skinner, a man who could find just about anything or anyone to build or help repair a piece of equipment. Rich had the unique talent of developing good relationships with repair facility management and equipment manufacturers. These were so important when equipment failed or a new project had to be expedited. We respected each other’s abilities.

Dr. Bill Spurgeon of Bendix Research Laboratories, my industrial doctoral advisor, helped me in selecting and funding my doctoral project and guiding me through it. Later, as my manager, he also provided me with interesting research projects to work on, such as the Mars soil sampler drill for NASA. He also provided me the opportunity to try my hand as Manager of Advanced Engineering for the Bendix Corporation. I decided after a couple of years that I preferred doing the engineering work rather than directing it and running a large department.

Chapter 1Methods for Analyzing Failures:“Hypothesize, Quantify, Verify, Rectify, Utilize”

In engineering and other sciences, decisions have to be made when failures occur. The mechanical engineering field I was in was concerned with machinery systems, pressure vessels, structures, and the various catastrophic failures that occurred. It was important to find the source of the failures quickly and implement a safe and cost-effective repair. This was not the time for guessing or using past experiences on similar failures. Each failure can be quite different. When the cause can’t be identified, it can’t be rectified. An example of this was when a high-speed coupling failed on a large centrifugal compressor system. A new coupling was installed without determining the cause. It failed again in 2 days. This was a dangerous situation as coupling debris flew everywhere. Luckily, no one was injured.

Many of the failures used in this book aren’t of the typical type that have obvious solutions. These failures are classified as being catastrophic, meaning they either produced a dangerous situation, had legal implications, were costly because of lost production or repair costs or all of the above.

Some of the examples were done just out of curiosity about something I had witnessed, read about, or was questioned about. It was a way to sharpen my analytical skills and techniques to see if my analysis agreed with actual observed data.

My primary contribution to a failure investigation team was to develop a mathematical model that could represent the system which failed. In this way, failures could be examined on the computer to see if they made sense with the data recovered from the failed system.

This information was provided to the investigation team so they could concentrate on areas of importance. The model could also be used to see how worthwhile a proposed modification might be.

This approach certainly enhanced my career and greatly reduced the risk of a failure on a re-start-up [1]. The personal stress involved in a start-up was greatly reduced.

While this approach made me many managerial friends by eliminating repeat failures and allowing safe start-ups at their plant, it also caused problems. Sometimes, management was not agreeable with the expensive downtime necessary for the investigation and repairs recommended and didn’t want to implement them. They just wanted to replace parts and start back up. There’s always the respected uninformed person who will tell them there’s no problem in doing this. My approach was to let them know it was their unit and their decision, but I was obligated to write up the team’s safety concerns along with my supporting calculations. With the do-nothing approach and luck, the unit might start-up and run fine. However, the team had used a scientific approach that was documented and defendable. Another catastrophic failure could bring legal action, especially if a fatality were involved. That would not fare well in a court of law. The court would want to know why the recommended modifications weren’t implemented. Cost and timing would be a weak defense.

This scientific approach has worked well during a 50-year career and has resulted in no-repeat start-up catastrophes for investigations I was involved with.

Some caution should be noted. This approach is recommended only for senior-level engineers with considerable experience and no history of bad decisions. For new engineers, do the calculations, provide your input but don’t confront management directly without support from a chief engineer or someone of a similar status who agrees with your calculations, reasoning, and logic.

1.1 Mathematical Modeling

Mathematical modeling is a scientific technique of producing the workings of a machine, structure, or any phenomena such as explosions in the form of equations. The wonderful part of this type of modeling is that these equations are like a time machine and can be used to predict the past, present, and future state of equipment.

The equations can be simple or complex. For example, the force required to accelerate an automobile to a given speed could be done with the simple equation, , where is the force required, the mass of the automobile, and the acceleration. A practical use for this would be to determine the strength of various structural components.

With development of mathematical models to analyze the cause of actual failures in industry, the results were sometimes surprising. They might not have been quite what was expected from observations of historical failures. When this happens, this just means we don’t understand something well enough, have the wrong model or data or not enough data.

Most of us may not be scientific geniuses, but we can do our own thought experiments. In my simplistic way I realized I used these creative images in my mind when building mathematical models to solve problems. Figure 1.1.1 is one envisioned when analyzing how far an attached gage on a vessel would fly if a poor weld holding it failed during high-pressure pneumatic testing. This was important because the plant safety officer was only going to restrict a pneumatic pressure test safety distance of 100 ft. The spring represents the pressure energy behind the piece of flying debris and was related to the pressure in the vessel.

Figure 1.1.1 Modeling a pressure explosion.

Certainly not any monumental discovery and not a highly accurate model, but it did address and solve an industrial safety concern quickly. The analysis indicated that depending on the fragment size, the fragment could travel up to 1,000 ft. The conclusion was to place blast blankets on the critical testing locations. It seems the 100-ft restriction code compliance clearance was only for the pressure shock wave and not for flying fragments.

Richard Feynman (theoretical physicist 1918–1988), known for his brilliant research into quantum mechanics, once stated in a physics classroom, to paraphrase him, “If a mathematical model, even if it is elegant and from a well-known scientist, doesn’t agree with good experimental data, it’s wrong.” I certainly agree with this, but wrong doesn’t mean not useful. In engineering much analysis work that doesn’t come out with the correct magnitude is still useful. For example, with the pneumatic testing model, when verifying the equation with data from a similar incident, the distance was found to be closer to 1,500 ft away, not the 1,000-ft distance predicted. The analysis still was useful for the engineering decision made. Next time used, the calculation method will be modified and will be more accurate.

Reference

1

Sofronas, A., Unique Engineering Methods for Analyzing Failures and Catastrophic Events: A Practical Guide for Engineers, Wiley, 2022.

1.2 Methods for Solving Problems

A valuable trait someone can have is good problem-solving skills. This is because there are all types of problems that have to be solved in everyday life. Some allow others to solve their problems by using those who have more experience in a particular area. Consultants, doctors, or using the advice of others are some that come to mind.

Most of us are capable of being good problem solvers. You might say, “But I’m not a doctor so how can I solve my health problems?” The answer is by doing some research and finding out what others have done who have had a similar problem and finding a good solution for yourself. You can then see your doctor and use their experience and education to address your concerns. You can ask questions based on your limited knowledge.

This section isn’t about personal problems but engineering ones. It’s about solving problems like those presented in this book. Both complex and fairly straightforward analysis methods are shown to help illustrate the versatility of these methods.

1.2.1 The Scientific Method

Arriving at the scene of a devastating type of failure such as a machine, structure, or explosion can be confusing. Everything is scattered about and no cause is evident. I call it “The Fog Of Confusion” because that’s how all the uncertainty feels to me. The following method helps eliminate this uncertainty in engineering.

One of the most used methods for problem-solving in engineering is the scientific method. In its simplest form it consists of the following:

Stating the problem you are trying to solve.

Developing a hypothesis, meaning what’s your best guess on what the problem cause might be.

Testing this guess by gathering data, interviewing personal, researching similar failures, performing calculation on analytical models, or running experimental tests. Since you can never really determine if you have found the exact solution, it’s valuable to see if your guess was wrong. Many times it is, and you need to state another best guess based on the data and test it in a similar way.

Asking your trusted associates to prove the hypothesis wrong you have developed.

Implementing a solution to the problem and documenting it.

Following up to ensure it solved the problem. Similar problems tend to reappear elsewhere, and this is good data to have.

The method isn’t only for scientific problems, and with a little imagination it can be used for solving many of life’s problems.

1.3 The Crack Growth Equation

In Section 2.5 an equation will be used to determine the cycles to grow a defect. While this type of equation had been developed for stainless steel (Eq. 1.3), it wasn’t available for titanium Ti 6Al-4V. An equation will be developed here for ductile materials only, meaning those that have a well-defined yield point. These are approximate type solutions used for determining if a problem may exist. They are not design equations.

How materials such as titanium and carbon fiber composites perform and their limitation is important to understand.

This is usually an area where a specialist such as a metallurgist, an engineer who studies materials, would be requested. Mechanical engineers and others need to understand the basic use of materials to help in analyzing designs and failures.

An important area of research in metals is crack growth, which means how much a crack will grow during each stress cycle. Consider Figure 1.3.1.

Figure 1.3.1 Crack growth.

A small crack has developed in a material. Due to cyclic stress , which cycles between zero and some tensile stress, the crack will grow, as it is opened, during each cycle. Shown is , which is the small plastic zone at the tip of the crack.

P.C. Paris (engineer, 1930–2017) developed the equation , where is the fatigue crack growth per stress cycle and is called the stress intensity factor and relates to the stress at the tip of the crack and its size in a small plastic zone. The terms and are experimentally determined to fit this power law.

The term and the constants can be determined for . This relationship is for a crack length in a large plate [1, p. 193].

Using the data in Ref. [1, p. 296] and performing some curve fitting on titanium results in:

Inserting the constants and performing some mathematical gymnastics results in the number of cycles to grow a crack.

In the following expression, is the initial nominal stress trying to open the crack in ksi and is the initial crack length and the final length in inches. The final length is based on the length necessary for the yield strength to be reached. This means stress calculations are needed.

For various crack types in a large plate, solving this crack growth equation results in:

This shows it will take these many cycles to grow the initial crack size to the final crack size in titanium.

Now for ductile materials this final crack length is the length of the crack in inches needed to reach the yield stress of the part (i.e. in ksi). Usually, a value of is used for most structures such as gear teeth and blade dovetails.

This means the remaining material can’t support the loads and bends in yield.

In the analysis the nominal stress is based on the stress intensity factor in a flat plate. Different types of cracks, meaning the type at the start, can be used [2, p. 332].

The following values can be used:

For titanium:

(1.1)

For stainless steel:

(1.2)

For carbon fibers with a small hole as a defect:

(1.3)

References

1

Barsom, J.M., Rolfe, S., Fracture and Fatigue Control in Structures, 2nd Edition, Prentice-Hall, 1977.

2

Sofronas, A., Analytical Troubleshooting of Process Machinery and Pressure Vessels: Including Real-World Case Studies, Wiley, 2006.

1.4 Failure of Carbon Fibers in Compressive Fatigue

I had little experience with carbon fiber composites. All of my work was with metals and welds and the fatigue failures that occurred in these materials. Crack growth was due to cyclic tensile stresses, not compressive stresses. Not much carbon fiber was used in the petrochemical industry during my career. Research was the only way I could understand what was happening with these types of materials.

Metals tend to eventually fail under fatigue from a crack. Carbon fiber composites do not undergo failure and tend to degrade under fatigue throughout the entire volume of the structure.