Microscopy: Science, Technology, Applications and Education

A. Méndez-Vilas and J. Díaz (Eds.)

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Microscopy analysis of damaged aeronautical components

J.M. Silva1, V. Infante2, M. de Freitas2 and L. Reis2
1
Depart. de Ciências Aeroespaciais, Universidade da Beira Interior, Edif. II das Engenharias, 6200-358 Covilhã, Portugal
2
Depart. de Engenharia Mecânica, Instituto Superior Técnico, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal

Microscopy analysis can play a major role in the context of the evaluation of failed components, allowing the observation
of fracture surfaces and other material’s features which are essential to the identification of some particular failure
mechanisms affecting aircraft components.
This paper is focused in the failure analysis of damaged components based either on macroscopic or microscopic
observations. A set of selected examples are presented and analyzed, which were based in the investigation of aeronautical
components that failed under distinct loading conditions. Whichever the case, the use of microscopy analysis is a key
factor for the assessment of damage mechanisms regardless the type of materials that can be either metallic alloys or high
performance composites. Final remarks from the presented examples and the detailed explanation of the microscopy
techniques in its basis may be of special interest to those who are concerned with the failure analysis of aeronautical
components, being a contributor factor for the maximization of safety standards during the design, maintenance or
operation phases of different types of aircrafts.

Keywords failure analysis, metallography, fractography, SEM, aeronautical components

1. Introduction
In order to find out the correct cause and sequence of a structural or component failure a systematic and scientific
approach is required. The amount of useful information gathered from the examination of a failure depends as much on
the experience, knowledge, analyzing skills and basic approach of the investigator as on the availability of details and
the necessary infrastructure.
The ability of even apparently minor defects to cause major aircraft accidents has always been a problem in
aeronautics, and the importance of failure analysis as a mean of tracking down and correcting both material and
structural deficiencies was rapidly seen. Since the 1950s, there has been the steady introduction of various approaches
to aircraft design and maintenance procedures; these have replaced the relatively simple static strength approach used
earlier. Increasingly, these approaches have incorporated the view that an aircraft must be capable of continuing to fly
even though it may contain cracks; this view has been formalized in, for example, the durability and damage tolerant
design methods applicable to many current military aircraft [1, 2]. However, all aircraft categories are characterized by
having high performance operational requirements which force aeronautical components to severe working conditions,
such as high loading factors, cyclic and time dependent damage mechanisms due to creep-fatigue, steep temperature
gradients (including elevated temperature environments), corrosion under stress, vibrations and others. As a
consequence, deficiencies always arise; cracks develop in locations not correctly evaluated, which are usually detected
prior to the catastrophic failure of the component. It is then necessary to assess the significance of the defect with
respect to its impact in terms of the airworthiness requirements, and even on an economic perspective, related with the
normal operation of aircrafts [3].
A failure investigation and subsequent analysis should determine the primary cause of failure aiming at determining
adequate corrective actions that will prevent similar failures. Frequently, the importance of contributory causes to the
failure of a component is assessed. The investigation of an aircraft accident is most of the times a complex and
laborious process that usually requires the services of experts in several fields of engineering, such as mechanical
behaviour of materials, metallurgy, metalography, fracture mechanics, among others. Several tools are used for
identifying the primary cause of failure, taking into account possible lapses during the design, manufacture, operation
and maintenance phases of a certain aeronautical structure or component. However, microscopic techniques can often
play a major role in the context of evaluation of failed components, allowing the observation of fracture surfaces and
other material’s features which are essential to the identification of some particular failure mechanisms, including
surface damage, elastic or plastic distortion and fracture.
Various experimental techniques are available to help failure analysis in identifying the cause of failure. Based on
these techniques it is possible, most of the times, to accurately define the failure mode, the origin of damage and
eventual material abnormal features by combining experimental techniques with the expertise of the investigator. In
order to avoid disputes, it is often necessary to use modern experimental tools to generate further evidence in support of
the findings obtained from the commonly used experimental techniques. The experience of the investigator lies in
selecting the right type of tests and examinations, and their sequence during the investigation process is also important
for the success of the conclusions and recommendations [3].

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 Microscopy: Science, Technology, Applications and Education
A. Méndez-Vilas and J. Díaz (Eds.)
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A failure analysis can include one or more of the following steps: 1) Visual examination; 2) Non destructive tests; 3)
Chemical analysis; 4) Mechanical testing (Hardness, toughness and fatigue tests, etc); 5) Macroscopic examinations; 6)
Miscroscopic examinations; 7) Microstructural examinations; 8) Conclusions about the failure mechanisms. Therefore,
microscopic techniques are the most weighting factors in the investigation process, and its application is of paramount
importance for establishing the correct causes of failure.
Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) and Universidade da Beira Interior (UBI), Portugal, have been conducting failure
investigations of aeronautical components for the last two decades, which are based in specialized experimental
facilities that allow for deriving the crack growth histories and observation of the fracture surfaces of damaged
components. Over these years, a considerable amount of knowledge and experience has been gained on this subject,
resulting from the analysis of real damaged components belonging to different types of aircraft systems. The following
chapter, divided in macroscopic and microscopic examinations, is focused in the presentation of failure cases where the
microscopy techniques are predominantly used. The selection of the pictures reported in this paper intended to cover a
broad range of damage mechanisms that are commonly found in damaged aeronautical components.

2. Failure analysis using microscopy techniques

In order to show the application of the concepts described in the previous sentences, some failure analysis examples will
be briefly described divided into macroscopic observations and microscopic examinations.

2.1 Macroscopic examination

The detailed examination of fracture surfaces at low magnifications (1 to 100x) may be done with visual examination, a
hand lens or a low-power optical microscope.
Regardless the type of component or structural failure, visual examination must be faced as the first and foremost
step in failure analysis. The use of the human eye, with or without the help of photos, is a simple and straightforward
procedure which accuracy should not be underestimated. An experienced person with sufficient knowledge of previous
cases can derive plenty of information, such as the presence of cracks, corrosion marks, deformations and
misalignments, and any other abnormal features indicating the ruin of the component or structure. Most often, the
presence of a defect, such as surface crack, is immediately detected by a simple visual inspection, even if it is necessary
to use complementary optical microscopic devices to enhance the accuracy of the inspection by allowing higher
magnifications. As a usual initial procedure, general photography of the entire fractured part must be undertaken,
including broken pieces to record their size and condition and to show how the fracture is related to the components of
the part. This operation can largely benefit by using high resolution microscope cameras for capturing high definition
and clear contrast images of certain details of the damage component. These close-up images can then be processed
during the subsequent stages of the analysis taking advantage of specific imaging editing software that provide an
extensive set of functions, such as image processing (e.g., brightness, contrast, saturation and filtering), pattern
matching, measuring and statistic analysis, among others. The aim of quantitative fractography is to measure the
extension of a defect or damaged region. As an example, the progress of a fatigue crack can be determined based on the
observation of beach marks caused by the load history or by striation marks caused by cyclic plastic deformation
mechanisms that can be related with events occurring in the loading history of the component. Additionally, the
topology of the fracture surfaces may give an indication of the stress system that produced failure, which is closely
dependent on the mechanical behaviour of the material. On a macroscopic scale, fractures can generally be classified as
ductile fractures, brittle fractures, fatigue fractures and fractures resulting from the combined effects of stress and
environmental conditions [4].
The first example is the failure of a trunnion made of an aluminum alloy 7075 from an aircraft landing gear (Fig. 1).
The failure occurred at the transition of two sections. The visual observation of the fractured surface by an expert in
failure analysis immediately indicates that this failure occurred by a fatigue process. The presence of beach marks,
clearly shown in Fig. 2 a), is one of the main characteristics of fatigue. A main area of the fracture surface present high
stress failure facies. A more detailed analysis of the fractured surface concludes that the surface that failed by fatigue is
clearly less than the one that failed by overload; this measuring capacity allows the investigator to consider that failure
occurred by fatigue but in the presence of high stress levels at the initiation zone. The fatigue area was relatively small,
10% of the whole fracture area.
In Fig. 2 a), three beach marks can be seen clearly from the distance between adjacent beach marks; it is thought that
the crack propagated very fast, and the crack propagation rate in the surface zone was slower than in the inner zone.
Radial lines in the transversal direction were found at the surface near the fracture origins, as shown in Fig. 2 a).
Another characteristic of fracture parts due to high level stresses is the presence of multiple crack initiation, which is the
case for this failure as can be seen using higher magnification shown in Fig. 2 b), where multiple-origin fatigue fracture
assumed a semi-circular or a semi-elliptical shape.

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Microscopy: Science, Technology, Applications and Education
A. Méndez-Vilas and J. Díaz (Eds.)
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Fig. 1 Fracture surface of a trunnion from an aircraft landing gear.

(a) (b)
Fig. 2 Fracture surfaces of a trunnion of a landing gear: a) initial and propagation zones; b) detail of the initial zone.

Another example of a component´s failure made of an aluminum alloy refers to a support from an aircraft landing
gear, as presented in Fig. 3. Visual inspection clearly shows that the presence of beach marks reveals that the failure of
the component occurred by fatigue (Fig. 3 a). The area that failed by fatigue is relatively equivalent to the area that
fractured by overload, which is a characteristic of relatively small stresses. Several groups of beach marks can be
identified through microscopy analysis (Fig. 3 b) and this indication helps the investigator to understand the type of load
service that occurred and correlate it with supplementary information from the customer.

(a) (b)
Fig. 3 Fracture surface of a support from an aircraft landing gear: a) general view of the fracture area. b) details of the beach marks.

Figure 4 is related to another example showing a view of the fracture surface of a compressor blade of an aeroengine
[5]. The fracture was developed in the normal plane of the blade axle and the tell-tale beach marks are indicative of
clear fatigue mechanisms. The crack propagated from the leading edge towards the trailing edge and from the lower
surface towards the upper surface of the blade airfoil. The beach marks reveal evidence of high cycle fatigue by blade
vibration and dynamic stress as likely contributors to the failure. This indicates that a vibration condition must have
occurred sufficient to propagate cracking from initial defects formed at the leading edges of the blade. The fracture
surface is relatively plane and its area is about 2/3 of that of the total blade section. Flat fracture surfaces are generally
associated with fatigue damage where cycle dependent mechanisms prevail. The crack propagation lines represent

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 Microscopy: Science, Technology, Applications and Education
A. Méndez-Vilas and J. Díaz (Eds.)
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important points of load level variation or interruption during crack propagation until the final fracture of the
component.

Fig. 4 Morphology of the fracture surface of a compressor blade.

Another example deals with the characterization of damage resulting from fatigue loading of carbon-epoxy laminates
with embedded optical fibers. This type of smart material is used in new generation structural components belonging to
aeronautical or space structures, aiming at providing air vehicles of health monitoring capabilities.
Some former studies [6, 7] point out that the presence of the optical fiber inside the material settles a defect that
cannot be neglected, since it acts as an embedded inclusion with stress concentration effects that are related with its size
and positioning inside the host structure. As a rule of thumb, the detrimental effect of the optical fiber is more evident
when it is embedded perpendicularly to the adjacent reinforcement fibers of the unidirectional laminate plies, producing
a surrounding lenticular resin rich region. This lenticular region acts like an interlaminar discontinuity that can be a
potential source of damage in the presence of both static and dynamic loads. Microscopic observations were made in
order to assess damage mechanisms in the neighbourhood of the optical fiber and also to examine possible fatigue
evidence at fracture zones. A set of specimens made of a prepreg of high strength carbon fibers and epoxy resin
fabricated using an autoclave process was used for fatigue testing. Two specimen configurations were considered with
different embedding orientations of the optical fiber, i.e., parallel and perpendicular to the adjacent plies. As expected,
the perpendicular orientation resulted in a resin rich lenticular region near the laminate surface, as shown in Fig. 5 b),
whilst parallel orientation has a minor disturbing effect to the surroundings of the host material, as confirmed by Fig. 5
a). The presence of this lenticular region near the laminate surface is a contributing factor for delamination and
formation of cracks that propagate in the presence of cyclic loading. Figure 6 confirms this possibility, showing an
originally interlaminar crack with subsequent interfacial development near the lenticular region.

(a) (b)
Fig. 5 Visualization of the effect of the optical fiber in the interior of a carbon-epoxy laminate: a) parallel orientation; b)
perpendicular orientation.

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Microscopy: Science, Technology, Applications and Education
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Fig. 6 Interlaminar cracking and subsequent delamination for a specimen with a perpendicular orientated optical fiber.

2.2 Microscopic examination

Another important investigation step is based in the microscopic examination of the failed component. Tools used in
metallurgical failure analysis include optical, transmission electron (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM),
which are fundamental equipments for observing finer details in the samples.
Optical examination of fracture surfaces offers many advantages when compared with electronic devices, namely:
extreme sensitivity to small changes in surface roughness, tilt, color and activity to polarized light. However, some
disadvantages must be pointed out, in particular poor depth of focus, restricted working distance and poor resolution.
The depth of focus is a consequence of the size of the wavelength of light in comparison with the size of the objects
being examined. The restricted working distance is generally not a great problem with fatigue fractures, which are
usually smooth in the region of crack initiation and early crack propagation. Resolution of the optical microscope
depends only upon the numerical aperture of the objective lens and the wavelength of light used.
When the investigator seeks for some fracture details that are normally beyond the conventional microscopes, SEM
is the right choice to be used to study fine microstructural features if the desired contrast can be obtained. For rough
surfaces whose feature depth is of the same order as the feature width, the SEM works rather well. By the contrary, for
smooth surfaces, whose feature depth is only a small fraction of the feature width, the SEM works poorly [8].
Most of the metallurgical failures can broadly be classified into intergranular failures and transgranular failures, but
there are some failed components where a mixed fracture pattern is observed [4]. Whichever the case, the use of SEM is
an appropriate technique for finding out evidences of both cyclic or time dependent mechanisms, since the former are
related with the occurrence of clear striation marks propagating on a flat surface with reduced roughness (transgranular
failure) whilst the latter are usually characterized by irregular fracture surfaces with cavities, pores and, for high
temperature conditions, the presence of oxidation products in the grain boundaries (intergranular failure) [9, 10].
The chemical composition of the material can also be obtained using a scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) applying
an x-ray spectrometry technique.
The component of the first example presented in the previous section, correspondent to a trunnion from a landing
gear (Fig. 1), was cut in small samples to be observed by SEM. The cracks initiation zone can be observed in Fig. 7.
The cracks appear at the trunnion surface and propagate in different planes of the fracture surface. In Fig. 7 b) there are
three beach marks in the propagation area. Every beach mark on the fatigue fracture surface of the trunnion corresponds
to a different stage of fatigue crack propagation. The fatigue cracks initiated at the trunnion and many origins could be
seen from Fig. 7 a) and b) and deformation lines were found at the surface near the fracture origins. Any type of initial
defect has not been observed in the fracture surface. Therefore it can be concluded that failure probably occurred by
fatigue but in the presence of higher loads in the component than those that were expected.
Concerning the second example of a support from an aircraft landing gear, the SEM examinations show fatigue
striations (Fig. 8) near the zone of higher crack growth rates. The measure and identification of the striation marks
allows the investigator to quantify the level of stresses that contribute to the failure of the component. It can be
concluded that low stress levels were present in this case.

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 Microscopy: Science, Technology, Applications and Education
A. Méndez-Vilas and J. Díaz (Eds.)
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(a) (b)
Fig. 7 Fracture appearance at fatigue zone observed by SEM of a trunnion from an aircraft landing gear: a) deformation lines at the
surface near the fracture origin; b) Three beach marks in the propagation area.

(a) (b)
Fig. 8 Fracture surface of a support from an aircraft landing gear: a) Fatigue striations in the fracture surface; b) Detail of Fig. 8 a)
with higher magnification.

In the third example, crack growth mechanisms related with the failure of a compressor blade were evaluated based
on microscopic observations using SEM. These observations confirmed that the initial defects at the leading edge were
not formed by a corrosion pit. As one can see, the fracture surface of the blade shown in Fig. 9 a) has clear striation
marks which are closely spaced and propagating on flat plateaus joined by shear steps. The image of the fracture surface
of Fig. 9 b) was obtained with a higher magnification, allowing detecting fatigue striations indicative of the crack
propagation direction, which in this case was found to be from the lower surface to the upper surface of the blade
airfoil. Figure 10 a) reports to this same region but higher magnification allows detecting secondary cracking. Finally,
some evidences of brittle fracture near the final fracture region are observed in Fig. 10 b), as well as pronounced radial
marks indicating the direction of crack propagation.

(a) (b)
Fig. 9 Fracture surface of the blade observed by scanning electronic microscopy: a) high-cycle fatigue striations in the fracture
surface of the blade. b) fatigue striations with higher magnification.

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Microscopy: Science, Technology, Applications and Education
A. Méndez-Vilas and J. Díaz (Eds.)
______________________________________________

(a) (b)
Fig. 10 Fracture surface of the blade observed by scanning electronic microscopy: a) same region of interest presented in Fig. 9
showing secondary cracks. b) brittle fracture observed near the final fracture zone. The pronounced radial marks indicate the fracture
directions.

The last example uses SEM observations of carbon-epoxy laminates with embedded optical fibers aiming at
characterizing various surface patterns at fracture zones of different laminate configurations as shown in Fig. 11. By
using this microscopic technique, it was possible to identify typical fatigue fracture surfaces for both unidirectional and
crossply laminates, which resulted in two distinct regions depending either on cyclic damage propagation or as a
consequence of the final breakage of the specimen. From these observations, the investigator can clearly identify an
airbrush like region indicating that the final rupture of the specimen was a consequence of a cyclic dependent damage
due to fatigue. An additional remark can be done about the effect of the optical fibre within the laminate, since it is clear
that the high stress region in the surroundings of the fibre promotes crack initiation, as visible in Fig. 11 a).

(a) (b)
Fig. 11 Fracture surface for different configurations of the carbon-epoxy laminate: a) unidirectional specimen; b) cross-ply specimen.
Whichever the type of specimen, the fracture surfaces show two clear distinct regions indicating a fatigue failure.

3. Final remarks
The examples presented in this paper confirm the advantages of using microscopic techniques in the analysis of
damaged aeronautical components, whichever the type of damage mechanism or the material of the component. Various
microscopic techniques are available to help the investigator in identifying the cause of failure, which can be separated
into two main domains: macroscopic or microscopic examination. In the first case, the use of a skilled human eye can
be determinant for the identification of the root cause of failure, but optical microscopic devices are imperative when
higher magnifications are necessary to enhance the accuracy of the inspection. Macroscopic observations can give a
large amount of significant information in a quick inspection to the component, even if the examination area is large,
including subtle changes of surface textures and colours, topology of fracture and crack propagation paths.
Microscopic examinations are predominantly used for the analysis of the main microstructural features of fracture
surfaces. In these cases, fracture details are normally beyond the conventional microscopes, and other more advanced
devices have to be used, such as SEM. This particular microscopy technique is rather adequate for finding out evidences
of fatigue mechanisms (which are usually identified by the presence of striation marks), and time-dependent
propagating damages (such as creep and oxidation processes affecting high temperature components of aeroengines).
The chemical composition of the material can also be obtained using SEM (applying an x-ray spectrometry technique),

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 Microscopy: Science, Technology, Applications and Education
A. Méndez-Vilas and J. Díaz (Eds.)
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which in some cases (such as during the investigation of an aircraft accident) can be vital for the identification of a
certain component with a large extension or level of damage.
Although the microscopic techniques presented in this paper are versatile and easy to use, the accuracy and validity
of the conclusions based on the observations deeply depend on the ability and level of knowledge of the investigator,
who must have a solid background of fracture mechanics and a high proficiency in the interpretation of micrographs
and other visual material related with the analysis of the damaged components.

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