Loading...
Forensic investigation of a failed connecting rod from a motorcycle engine
Bari, Klaudio Rolfe, A Christofi, A Mazzuca, C Sudhakar, KV
Bari, Klaudio
Rolfe, A
Christofi, A
Mazzuca, C
Sudhakar, KV
Editors
Other contributors
Affiliation
Epub Date
Issue Date
2017-05-19
Submitted date
Alternative
Abstract
In the present work, a failed connecting rod from a motorcycle engine was investigated for the root cause of and possible mechanisms leading to its premature failure. In addition to finding the root cause, the expectation from this study was to possibly improve the existing designs or practices to avoid similar failures in future. These results were validated using a finite element analysis (FEA) simulation. A Scanning Electron Microscope was used for investigating the mechanisms of fracture modes, optical microscopy for studying the microstructures and visual inspection were primarily utilised to determine the root cause of the failure. In conclusion, it was determined that the root cause for the premature failure of the connecting rod was the presence of scale build-up inclusions, which led to micro cracking during fatigue loading of the component.
Citation
Bari, K., Rolfe, A., Christofi, A., Mazzuca, C. and Sudhakar, K.V. (2017) Forensic investigation of a failed connecting rod from a motorcycle engine. Case Studies in Engineering Failure Analysis, 9, pp. 9-16.
Publisher
Research Unit
PubMed ID
PubMed Central ID
Embedded videos
Type
Journal article
Language
en
Description
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsvier. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence.
The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csefa.2017.05.002
Series/Report no.
ISSN
2213-2902