J Fail. Anal. and Preven.

(2010) 10:393398
DOI 10.1007/s11668-010-9373-4

TECHNICAL ARTICLEPEER-REVIEWED

Failure Analysis of Gearbox and Clutch Shaft

from a Marine Engine
S. F. Hassan M. R. Alam

Submitted: 25 January 2010 / in revised form: 7 June 2010 / Published online: 23 June 2010
 ASM International 2010

Abstract This article presents metallurgical failure

analysis of a gearbox shaft and a clutch shaft from a marine
engine. The gearbox shaft was made of low alloy steel, and
the clutch shafts were components made of carbon steel.
Fracture surface examination revealed circumferential
ratchet marks with the presence of inward progressive
beach marks suggesting rotary-bending fatigue failure in
the case of gearbox shaft. The star-shaped pattern on the
clutch shaft fracture surface suggested that the failure was
due to torsional overloading which might have initiated at
corrosion pits visible around the fracture surface. The
gearbox shaft experienced rotational bending stresses
which induced fatigue failure because the fatigue strength
of the alloy was too low. The fatigue failure of the gearbox
shaft led to the torsional failure of the corroded clutch
shaft. The sudden, high level failure load on the clutch
shaft occurred when the gear box shaft failed.
Keywords

Gearbox shaft
Fatigue
Design
Failure

Introduction
The primary objective of a metallurgical failure analysis is
to determine the root cause of failure. Whether dealing

S. F. Hassan (&)
Department of Mechanical Engineering, King Fahd University
of Petroleum & Minerals, P.O. Box 1061, Dhahran 31261,
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
e-mail: sfhassan@kfupm.edu.sa
M. R. Alam
School of Engineering Systems, PELM, CQUniversity Australia,
Gladstone Campus, Bryan Jordan Drive,
Gladstone 4680, QLD, Australia

with metallic or non-metallic materials, the root cause can

normally be assigned to design, materials, manufacturing,
and/or maintenance problems. Often, several adverse conditions also contribute to the failure process. Many of the
potential root causes of failure are common to metallic and
non-metallic materials. Some common failures found in
shafts include fatigue as a result of stress concentrations
and embrittlement. Another common cause for failure in
shafts is the misalignment or mismatch of mating parts.
This misalignment can cause vibration and ultimately
result in a fatigue failure in the shaft [1]. A gear shaft is
usually subject to a high torsional moment and a bending
moment as well as cyclic stresses which, when combined,
may cause fatigue in the shaft. These factors may be
influenced by stress concentrations which decrease the
fatigue life and lead to the fracture of gear shaft [2]. It is
estimated that approximately 90% of all the metallic failures is due to the fatigue which may be catastrophic and/or
insidious, because it frequently occurs very suddenly and
without much apparent warning [3]. The design of a
component has a significant influence in its fatigue characteristics because fatigue cracks almost always initiate on
the surface of the component, generally at some point of
stress concentration. Any geometrical discontinuity may
act as a stress raiser, and the severity of the associated
stress concentration increases with increasing sharpness in
the geometrical discontinuity.
In the marine engine evaluated in this study, the gearbox
shaft and clutch shaft are located in the gear box unit.
Gearbox shaft transmits power from gearbox to propeller
shaft, while clutch shaft helps in transmitting power from
engine to gear box. The life of these shafts is usually
around 2025 years. The two failed shafts from the marine
engine in question were used in the gear box unit of a
container ship and failed within a couple of years

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Table 1 Dimensions of the shafts

Dimensions

Gearbox shaft

Clutch shaft

Length, mm

1650

1350

150

230

Diameter at fracture, mm

of installation. Each of the shafts was broken into two

pieces. Dimensions of these shafts are shown in Table 1.
The aim of this study was to investigate the root causes of
these failures in the gearbox and a clutch shaft of the
marine engine.

failure. The crack orientation at approximately 45 to the

axis of the shaft indicates that the final fracture was caused
by tensile stresses which, under torsional loading, are on
the 45 plane. The heavy presence of corrosion pits (see
Fig. 2b) was observed on the surface of the shaft around
the fracture region suggesting easy initiation of cracks
under applied stress. Scanning electron microscopy on the
clutch shaft fracture surface revealed tearing cleavage steps
(see Fig. 2c) that indicate a brittle mode of failure. Energy
dispersive x-ray spectrometry on the corroded zone around
the fracture surface revealed that the iron (Fe)oxygen (O)based corrosion product in the pits (see Fig. 2d).

Investigation Methodology

Metallography

An initial, thorough background investigation was conducted to identify possible contributing factors to the
failure. The failure analysis was organized so that the
investigation of the failed gearbox shaft and clutch shaft
included the study of (i) fractured surfaces by visual
observations and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)
coupled with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS)
to establish the failure modes, (ii) metallography of prepared sections from the shafts, (iii) the determination of the
chemical composition of the shafts by using spectroscopic
chemical analysis, and (iv) measurement of the tensile
properties and impact toughness of materials by tensile and
Charpy tests at room temperature. Care was taken to avoid
any damage to fractured surfaces.

Results of metallography on the fractured shafts revealed

tempered martensitic microstructure in the case of gearbox
shaft (see Fig. 3a) and pearlite microstructure within a
proeutectoid ferrite network along the prior austenitic grain
boundaries (see Fig. 3b) in the case of clutch shaft.

Results of Investigations
Examination of Fracture Surface
The failed gearbox shaft is shown in Fig. 1a. The visual
examination of fracture surface (see Fig. 1b) revealed the
(i) presence of inwardly progressive circumferential beach
marks indicating fatigue, and (ii) smeared small final
fracture zone at the core of the shaft. Circumferential
ratchet mark suggests the fatigue started in multiple locations at the outer surface under rotational bending stress.
Careful view of matching fracture surfaces revealed that
there was sharp step-down in diameter (see Fig. 1c) of the
shaft which acted as stress riser, i.e., notch, and initiated
the fatigue cracks under rotational bending stress. Scanning
electron microscopy on the fracture surface revealed
striations (see Fig. 1e) in the beach marked fatigue zone
(b in Fig. 1b) and fine dimples (see Fig. 1f) in the
severely smeared final fracture zone (a in Fig. 1b).
The failed clutch shaft is shown in Fig. 2a. The visual
examination of the fracture surface of the clutch shaft
showed star-shaped fracture pattern typical of torsional

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Chemical Analysis
Result of chemical analysis of the shafts materials is shown
in Table 2. Chemical analysis results revealed that the
gearbox shaft was made of SAE4340 grade steel, and the
clutch shaft was made of SAE5046H grade steel [4].
Mechanical Testing
Mechanical testing for tensile and fracture properties can
provide quantitative measures of strength and susceptibility
to failure. Tensile test and Charpy test were conducted to
measure the yield strength, percentage of elongation, and
the impact energies of the gearbox shaft and clutch shaft
materials, and the results are shown in Table 3.

Discussion
Chemical analysis on the materials composition (see
Table 2) suggested that the gearbox shaft was made of low
alloy SAE 4340 [4] which is considered to have excellent
notch toughness, which is in anomaly compared with other
high strength steels. Tempered martensitic microstructure
(see Fig. 3a) revealed by metallography on gearbox shaft
materials suggests that the shaft was heat treated. The
circumferential geometrical discontinuity in the gearbox
shaft was sharp due to sudden step-down in diameter (see
Fig. 1a, c) and induced the notching effect, i.e., acted as
stress concentration site under the rotational bending stress
[3, 5, 6]: For a rotating shaft, (a) every point on the
periphery sustains a cyclic tensile/compressive stress once

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395

As-received gearbox shaft

a
Final overload

Beach mark

Beach mark

(b)

Crack growth
direction

Ratchet mark
Machined zone

Machined
Fatigued zone

(a)
Stress riser

(d)

(c)

(e)

(f)

Fig. 1 (a) As-received fractured gearbox shaft. (b) Photograph showing crack initiation sites (pointed with arrow), smooth fatigue beach mark
(zone b) and rough final fracture (zone a) as the magnified view of the section boxed in figure (a). (c) Schematic diagram showing sharp
change in the diameter of the gearbox shaft around the fractured zone. (d) Fractograph showing crack initiation sites at the sharp edge of the
reduced section (boxed in figure a) in the case of gearbox shaft. (e) Fractographs showing fatigue striations with the presence of heavy plastic
deformation (zone b in figure b) in the case of gearbox. (f) Fractographs showing fine ductile dimples at the final overloaded region (zone a
in figure b) in the case of gearbox shaft

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Fig. 2 (a) As-received clutch shaft. (b) Photographs showing uniformly distributed corrosion pits around the fracture zone in the case of clutch
shaft. (c) Fractographs showing cleavage steps on star-shaped pattern on the fracture surface of the clutch shaft. (d) Scanning electron
micrograph with associated EDX spectrum showing iron oxide in the corrosion pit of in the case of clutch shaft

with every revolution of the shaft, (b) once a fatigue crack

had initiated in the notch area, an asymmetrical crack front
developed from a single origin (i.e., crack front swings
around 15 or more) (see Fig. 1a), (c) in addition, a distribution of multiple crack origins could also be seen [6]
(see Fig. 1a, b). The rotational bending raised the stress at
the circumferential sharp corner and promoted the initiation the additional fatigue cracks (see Fig. 1a, b, d). The
progressive rotational bending led the inward fatigue crack
propagation and weakened the gearbox shaft to such an

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extent that the applied stress caused the final tensile fracture (see Fig. 1a, f). The SEA4340 steel was apparently the
most suitable materials for the gearbox shaft which contained a design-induced notch because this steel has an
increasing notch endurance with increasing tensile
strength. Although this is an anomaly compared to other
grades of steels where notch endurance decreases with
increasing strength level [5], the fatigue endurance was
expected to be high in the high strength steel. However,
the measured strength of the gearbox shaft material

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397

(see Table 3) close to the fracture surface was found to be

unexpectedly low [4] which might be the reason for fatigue
crack initiation when the shaft was apparently operating at
the designed stress level. The strength, and hence the
fatigue resistance of the material, should be increased by
deep hardening to prevent future premature failure of the
gearbox shaft. The design induced-notch is unavoidable,
and the material selection and processing must be used to
avoid future failures.
Chemical analysis (see Table 2) suggests that the clutch
shaft was made of SAE5046H grade steel, and the metallography on the clutch shaft materials revealed pearlitic

microstructure within a proeutectoid ferrite network along

the prior austenitic grain boundary as shown in Fig. 3b.
The result of mechanical property test revealed very low
toughness of the clutch shaft materials. Moisture contamination in the lubrication of the clutch shaft apparently
caused extensive pitting corrosion (see Fig. 2b, d) around
the fracture zone, and this pitting weakened the clutch
shaft. The star-shaped pattern (see Fig. 2a) on the fracture
surface indicates torsional failure under sudden overloading [6]. The crack orientation on the fracture surface was
found to be at approximately 45 to the axis, which is
consistent with the torsional overload [6]. The failure did
not occur because of the longitudinal or transverse shear
stresses. Cleavage or cleavage-like steps in the fracture
surface (see Fig. 2c) are also supportive of sudden torsional
overload of the clutch shaft [6]. The rotary-bending fatigue
failure of the gearbox shaft exerted suddenly a high torsional stress on the corroded clutch shaft, and induced its
failure as both the shafts were interconnected in the marine
engine. It is suggested that, as preventive measures, necessary steps should be taken such as avoiding the degrading
pitting corrosion of the shaft by insuring proper lubrication,
and utilizing a tougher low alloy steel to replace the low
carbon steel for clutch shaft.

Conclusions
From the failure analysis, the following conclusions can be
made: (a) the root cause of entire system failure was the
fatigue of a gearbox shaft that was not heat treated properly; (b) rotary-bending fatigue was the failure mode of the
gearbox shaft, and this failure occurred because of the low
strength of the low alloy steel in the notch region; (c) the

Table 3 Mechanical properties of the shafts

Gearbox Shaft
Sample

Fig. 3 Representative micrographs showing (a) tempered martensitic, and (b) pearlite with proeutectoid ferrite network at grain
boundary, in the cases of gearbox and clutch shaft, respectively

Experimental

Yield strength, MPa

646

Tensile strength, MPa

815.5

Clutch
Shaft

335.2

12401470

684.2

24

19

123

14

Elongation, %
Impact energy, J, at ?20C

SAE4340 [4]

Table 2 Result of chemical composition test on the fractured shafts

Materials

Si

Mn

Cu

Ni

Gearbox shaft

0.44

0.30

0.68

0.03

0.12

Clutch shaft

0.45

0.30

0.81

0.01

0.02

Cr

Mo

1.72

0.74

0.20

0.13

Gradea
SAE4340
SAE5046H

Closest match chemical composition with AISI-SAE designation [4]

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clutch shaft failed because of sudden, torsional overloading

induced by the gearbox shaft failure; and (d) the corrosion
pit on the clutch shaft might have expedited the clutch shaft
failure.

Recommendations
The investigations suggested that (a) enhancement in
strength of the gearbox shaft material using a deep hardening heat treatment, and (b) the selection of a tougher low
alloy steel for the clutch shaft, coupled with periodic
inspection and proper maintenance should prevent future
premature failures.

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