Fractography and its role in Failure Analysis

What is Fractography?

Fractography is the study of the fracture surfaces of materials.

One of the aims of fractographic examination is to determine the cause of failure by studying the characteristics of a fractured surface. Different types of crack growth (e.g. fatigue, stress corrosion cracking, hydrogen embrittlement) produce characteristic features on the surface, which can be used to help identify the failure mode.

There are three basic steps in conducting fractographic analysis:

• Macro-fractoanalysis: visually observe the fractured surface and using camera with supporting lighting effects to conduct analysis in macro scale.
• Micro-fractoanalysis: Using microscropes such as scanning electron microscope to reveal special fractographic features that prove the fracture mechanism and failure modes.
• Interpretation: Basing on all the facts that found from macro and micro analysis, fractographer puts every found features together and figures out the relationships between them, eventually leading to the whole picture of how the failure happened.

Contact for fractography analysis

Credit: Fraktographische Online-Datenbank, ✉ [email protected]