Some performance criteria are documented by the supplier, such as maximum load allowed on a tractor, while others are implied or expected by the customer, such gas consumption (miles per gallon for automobiles).
Potential root causes of metallurgical failures are vast, spanning the lifecycle of component from design to manufacturing to usage.
Improper maintenance would cause potential sources of fracture to go untreated and lead to premature failure of a component in the future.
Testing and/or inspection are typically included in component manufacturing lines to verify the product meets some set of standards to ensure the desired performance in the field.
Improper testing or inspection would circumvent these quality checks and could allow a part with a defect that would normally disqualify the component from field use to be sold to a customer, potentially leading to a failure.
For metal parts, casting defects are common, such as cold shut, hot tears or slag inclusions.
It can also be surface treatment problems, processing parameters such as ramming a sand mold or wrong temperature during hardening.
[12][13][14][15] Computational fluid dynamics is used to determine the flow pattern and shear stresses on a component that had failed due to erosive wear.