ABSTRACT
It is recalled that any engineering product is designed and manufactured to
perform specific functions serving certain human needs. Once the need for a
given product is established, the design engineer conceives, plans, and carries out
a program by means of which the product can be manufactured to meet its func-
tional requirements over a predetermined service life. Regardless of the complexity
of the product, its service performance is a function of many aspects of design and
manufacturing, as well as the adherence of the user to design parameters during
service and the maintenance procedure and schedule recommended by the manu-
facturer. As schematically illustrated in Fig. 2.1, the various aspects of engineering
design, manufacturing, and performance are steps in a chain of a continuous
process. All these steps must be correlated and tailored to deliver a reliable and
durable product. Failure can be expected to occur at the weakest link of the chain
process shown in Fig. 2.1, and it is the responsibility of the failure analyst to identify
that link in order to be able to prevent future failures.
