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londons_explore 8 hours ago

I assume such forces are calculated and added in when deciding hot thick to make those mounting brackets.

loeg 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, obviously; MD-11s aren't flinging engines off the wing every single takeoff. A 34 year old airframe may or may not actually match design strength, though.

HumblyTossed 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yep. Now do 3 decades of metal fatigue.

supportengineer 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Did I understand the report correctly that the part was scheduled to be replaced in the future after a certain number of hours, it just hadn't hit the threshold yet ?

tremon 4 hours ago | parent [-]

If you're referring to this quote (excerpted from the AVHerald article linked elsewhere in the thread), I don't think so:

> At the time of the accident, N259UP had accumulated a total time of about 92,992 hours and 21,043 cycles [..] A special detailed inspection (SDI) of the left pylon aft mount lugs would have been due at 29,200 cycles and of the left wing clevis support would have been due at 28,000 cycles

This isn't talking about replacement, only inspection; and it wasn't going to happen in the near future: 7k cycles at four flights/day means inspection is due in 5 years.

baggy_trough 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, but the point is that this moment of the takeoff is when a failure that's been waiting to happen is most likely both because of the thrust and the gyroscopic resistance.

shtzvhdx 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Aluminum has limited loading cycles

dreamcompiler 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'd be very surprised to read that the aft lug that cracked (and the bearing it contained) were made of aluminum. They were almost certainly steel or Inconel.

CoastalCoder 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Wouldn't that be true of all cast metal objects?

Or are some metals impervious?

harshreality 37 minutes ago | parent [-]

No; roughly, yes.

In theory I suppose everything (even perfectly manufactured steel or titanium) fails even under light loads as # of cycles goes to infinity simply due to stochastic grain degradation over long periods of time from mechanical stress, radiation, etc.

For practical engineering purposes, however, iron (steel) and titanium alloys have an endurance limit after which metal parts no longer degrade due purely to more cycles (on operationally-relevant timescales); aluminum and other metals, however, will.

> The fatigue limit or endurance limit is the stress level below which an infinite number of loading cycles can be applied to a material without causing fatigue failure.[1] Some metals such as ferrous alloys and titanium alloys have a distinct limit,[2] whereas others such as aluminium and copper do not and will eventually fail even from small stress amplitudes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_limit

I don't know where metallurgists draw the line between metal fatigue purely do to cycle-weakening (e.g. of aluminum) and metal failure due to crack propagation (which can happen with any metal due to manufacturing impurities or damage after manufacture). The difference may be that fatigue cracks can be detected, and their propagation tracked, with less invasive, less involved methods (e.g. ultrasonic or dye).