Failure Analysis & Testing Flashcards
7 cards from real CRE practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Failure Analysis & Testing flashcards as text
Which failure analysis technique uses a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to examine fracture surfaces at high magnification?
Answer: Fractography
Fractography uses SEM and other microscopy tools to examine fracture surfaces and identify failure modes such as fatigue, overload, or corrosion.
In accelerated life testing (ALT), the Arrhenius model is most commonly used to accelerate failures caused by:
Answer: Temperature stress
The Arrhenius model relates the rate of chemical/thermal degradation to temperature, making it the standard model for temperature-accelerated life testing.
A component shows beach marks on its fracture surface. This is most indicative of:
Answer: Fatigue crack propagation
Beach marks (also called clamshell marks) are macroscopic striations on fracture surfaces that indicate cyclic loading and fatigue crack propagation.
The primary purpose of HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Test) is to:
Answer: Precipitate and discover design weaknesses
HALT applies stresses beyond specification limits to rapidly discover design weaknesses and failure modes before production.
In root cause analysis, the '5 Whys' technique is best suited for:
Answer: Simple to moderately complex failures with a single cause chain
The 5 Whys method iteratively asks 'why' to drill down through a cause-and-effect chain, working best when there is a single root cause pathway.
Which non-destructive testing (NDT) method is most effective for detecting surface cracks in ferromagnetic materials?
Answer: Magnetic particle inspection
Magnetic particle inspection (MPI) reveals surface and near-surface discontinuities in ferromagnetic materials by detecting leakage flux around defects.
Environmental Stress Screening (ESS) differs from HALT primarily because ESS:
Answer: Operates within or near product specifications to screen out latent defects
ESS applies stresses within or near specification limits to precipitate latent defects in production units without damaging good product.