Metallurgical Consultants

Lifting Equipment Failures

Lifting equipment is used to raise, lower, and otherwise transport or manipulate components and equipment in a localized area.  There are several types of components used in lifting equipment.  Some of these components are listed below:

Shafts   Brakes   Chains   Gears   Wire rope   Hooks   Couplings   Bearings   Wheels

Some typical failure mechanisms in lifting equipment are due to fatigue, wear, corrosion, and ductile or brittle fracture.  Components may fail from one or more of these mechanisms or due to other failure mechanisms.

Insuring the lifting equipment is not overloaded, in addition to appropriate inspections, maintenance, removal from service, and repair can help eliminate many failures.  The leading cause of lifting equipment failures are due to improper operation.  Unfortunately, overloading of a lifting mechanism is not an uncommon practice.

Wear is the most readily recognized condition by operators and maintenance personnel.  Excessive wear is usually a relatively easy condition to correct.  However, complete elimination of wear in components used in lifting equipment is not feasible.

Fatigue is a more insidious type of failure mechanism as it is more difficult to detect.  Periodic inspection by properly trained inspection and maintenance personnel can avert fatigue failures of critical components.

Some other reasons for failures include the following:   Design issues   Material selection   Assembly errors   Unacceptable material properties   Improper manufacturing processing   Improper maintenance or repair

[ Home ] [ Failure Analysis ] [ Root Cause Analysis ] [ Welding ] [ Metallurgy ] [ Process Control ] [ Expert Witness ] [ Experience ] [ Customer Cases ] [ Fees ] [ Links ]

Send mail to Help@MaterialsEngineer.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 1999 Metallurgical Consultants
Last modified: January 25, 2012