Faculty Publications

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Author: search.filters.author.Dsilva, P.C.Subject: search.filters.subject.Visual inspection

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    Catastrophic failure of urea prill-tower fan
    (Elsevier Ltd, 2021) Hegde, S.R.; Rakshan Kumar, J.K.; Sondar, P.R.; Dsilva, P.C.
    This work presents failure investigation of a prill-tower fan that was in service for about 20 years in a urea plant. All the fan-blades and the plummer blocks fractured catastrophically during the plant-operation, shocked the plant personnel, and caused a huge shutdown loss. Standard failure analysis procedure involving: site visit, visual inspection, microstructural analysis, fracture analysis, analytical stress calculation and FEM analysis was followed. The investigation confirms that the fan-blades having numerous dents and nicks were operating in a mild corrosive atmosphere of ammonium hydroxide. The fracture analysis suggests that a pre-existing dent on the trailing edge of a blade corroded to form a pre-crack that aligned perpendicular to the long axis of the blade. When the pre-crack grew to a critical size, a small chunk of the blade fractured from the vicinity and ejected towards the blade-tip by centrifugal force. Because of confined space around the fan and limited blade-tip clearance, this triggered a chain reaction of blade fracture and rattled the entire array of fan-blades. The analysis establishes that the plummer blocks failed due to mechanical imbalance of the fan-shaft caused by the blade failure. The investigation concludes that presence of dents and nicks on the fan-blades is the root-cause for this catastrophic failure. Grinding-off of the surface defects to eliminate stress raisers is recommended for averting such a failure in future. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd
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    Failure Analysis of Reciprocating CO2 Compressor
    (Springer, 2021) Dsilva, P.C.; Shetty, P.; Sondar, P.R.; Ganesh Kumar, B.; Hegde, S.R.
    This work presents failure analysis of a heavy-duty, four-stage, double-action, reciprocating CO2 compressor, which resulted in the shutdown of an ammonia plant. The failure occurred in the fourth stage of the compressor, during which the piston rod, piston rings, a suction valve, and associated valve cage are found fractured. The failure analysis includes details of site visit, visual inspection, dye penetrant test, fractography, and microstructural analysis. Furthermore, Xanthoproteic test was conducted on the extracts of the failed piston rings that confirmed the presence of bacterial cellular protein. When the morphology of the failed piston ring was studied using a scanning electron microscope, unique degradation features and the presence of bacterial metabolic products were observed conforming to the growth of bacteria. In-service biodegradation of the piston ring material (polyether ether ketone composite) is adjudged as the root cause for the compressor failure. © 2021, ASM International.
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    Failure of Soap Extruder Bolt Assembly
    (Springer, 2023) Kumar, J.K.R.; Mogra, N.; Padasale, B.; Dsilva, P.C.; Sondar, P.; Hegde, S.R.
    Present work investigates failure of EN8 steel bolt in a bolt–pin assembly that was used as a fastener in an industrial soap extruder. Unexpectedly, EN19 steel pin that is supposedly the sacrificial element in the assembly remained intact. The investigation follows standard failure-analysis procedure comprising, site-visit, visual inspection, metallography, mechanical-testing, design-analysis, numerical stress-analysis, and fractography. The design-analysis finds that the materials of construction were mistakenly swapped between the pin and the bolt that caused plastic-deformation, necking, and eventual failure of the bolt during operational peak-loading condition. The numerical stress analysis illustrates that the bolts failed at the thread-root region that acted as the stress-raiser. Additionally, the investigation finds that poor-quality machining left-behind jagged thread-root profile that increased the stress-concentration furthermore. The metallography and the fractography indicate that a transverse crack that was initiated at poorly machined thread-root led to the brittle fracture of the bolt. The investigation illustrates how human errors can cause recurring failure of critical components leading to production losses and makes suitable recommendations to prevent such failures in the future. © 2023, ASM International.