Cracked component

A crack may have initiated and is growing, or has reached such a stage that the piece has failed completely.  Cracks may be monitored using regularly scheduled NDT inspections, such as magnetic particle imaging (MPI), dye penetrant, or Ultrasonics (UT), or electronically using ‘crack gauges’.  Cracks can be assessed through fatigue life estimations based on Finite Element Analysis (FEA) that demonstrates whether a crack should occur during the life of the equipment, or if initiated, the growth rate can be estimated using fracture mechanics.  There are certain repair techniques available, involving either drilling the tip of the crack, welding, stitching or overloading, which are dependent on the particular situation.