ABSTRACT
Some very basic failure analyses can be accomplished without truly understanding the effects of various stresses and the materials they act on. Unfortunately, as failures become more complicated, this lack of knowledge invariably leads to errors. When one starts looking into the more costly or complex failures, the need to understand exactly what is happening becomes incredibly important. Stress causes parts to bend or break but all materials don’t react in the same manner. In the real world, a good understanding of stresses and their effects on materials is crucial for accurate failure analysis. (For example, doubling the load causes a beam to deflect twice as much, but doubling the load on a rolling element bearing will cut its life by a factor of eight to ten.) In this chapter, we’ll discuss some of those basic definitions and concepts.
