Since people generally come to failure analysts when they can’t figure things out for themselves, it’s important to have access to reliable facts, know how to recognize them and be able to explain to people why our facts are indeed of the reliable kind!

Too many companies still use built-in “holds” when heating up parts in their brazing furnaces. I recently asked the production manager at an aerospace company, “Why do your brazing personnel have those temperature holds in their furnace brazing cycles?”

One of most important technical issues that a fracture analyst must deal with is evaluating whether the crack was ductile or brittle. 

This column is designed to help you troubleshoot your heat-treatment problem. It will show you how to be effective, efficient and logical in your troubleshooting and help you determine if the problem is process, material, design or control.

There are a number of very important steps that must be followed in order to ensure good brazing, one of which is that the parts to be joined must be clean before being assembled for brazing.  

The study of heat treatment and the metallurgy of metals is perhaps the oldest science known to man-kind. If one thinks about that statement, you realize that there was a time that humans used only stone for weapons and digging. Then came the age that carried man into the world of metals.

Looking closely at an object and noticing its features and details is a good way to increase our creative powers. Following up on our curiosity is a good way to build a solid foundation of knowledge. Studying natural objects in this way is an excellent entrance to the world of scientific facts.

When visiting a brazing job-shop recently, I was told that one of the shop’s clients insisted that some of their components be re-brazed because the braze fillets were not large enough, according to that client. When I examined the component myself, the braze fillet was actually perfectly OK, but the shop’s client thought that all fillets – welded or brazed – needed to be large.

As every heat treater – captive or commercial – knows, distortion will occur. The heat treater must recognize the many reasons why distortion occurs. This applies to both ferrous and nonferrous materials.

Last month, my right rear-lower molar broke. As shown in Figure 1, the fracture event resulted in a chipped condition.