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Failure of a Cooling Water Pump Shaft

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Abstract

This study investigates the failure of an industrial cooling water pump which experienced a drive shaft failure. As per the fail-safe design, during adverse loading of the shaft, key should fail by shear. The key, if fails, can be easily replaced to resume the operation of the pump. However, this investigation reveals that both the key and the shaft failed due to materials processing issues. A detailed failure analysis was carried out including design calculations, visual inspection, dye penetrant inspection, magnetic particle inspection, hardness test, microstructural analysis, and fractography. The study found that the hardness of the shaft varied radially from the core to the surface. The subsurface of the shaft near the keyway, happened to be significantly softer than the key. During operation, the keyway widened by plastic deformation and caused rattling of the key. Due to rattling and vibration, the key developed numerous fatigue cracks and eventually failed by crack linkages. The shaft eventually failed by torsional shear near the midpoint of the keyway. The analysis adjudged hardness variation in the shaft due to materials processing issues as the root cause of the failure.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, for providing experimental facilities for completing this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, 575025, India

    Pavankumar R. Sondar, J. K. Rakshan Kumar, Sanjay Chawla, Preetish C. Dsilva & Subray R. Hegde

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  1. Pavankumar R. Sondar
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  2. J. K. Rakshan Kumar
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  3. Sanjay Chawla
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  4. Preetish C. Dsilva
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  5. Subray R. Hegde
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Correspondence to Pavankumar R. Sondar.

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Sondar, P.R., Kumar, J.K.R., Chawla, S. et al. Failure of a Cooling Water Pump Shaft. J Fail. Anal. and Preven. 21, 149–159 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11668-020-01043-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11668-020-01043-0

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