Failure case of a garage door opener

A failure analysis of a garage door opener was conducted for determination of the cause of the failure. The analysis included visual inspections of broken parts as well as electron microscopy examinations of the fracture surface. The visual inspections showed that a bolt connected to the inner trolley of the garage opener assemibly was initially fractured. Also, the results of electron microscopy examinations revealed that the broken bolt failed by fatigue damage phenomenon, due to alternating torsional stresses through out 25 years of an operational life of the garage opener. In addition, a mathematical model corresponding to the failure mechanism was derived along the failure analysis. The model comprises of both design philosophy and fracture mechanics approaches.


INTRODUCTION
Broken parts of a garage door opener was submitted to the materials science laboratory, of KISR, for determination of the cause of the failure.The broken parts were a 0.625 cm UNC bolt (0.25 inch) connected through a cable to the inner trolley of the garage door-opener assembly.The bolt has a major diameter of 0.625 cm, a minor diameter of 0.477 cm, 20 threads per inch, and a pitch diameter of 0.545 cm.The garage door size is for two car garage.The garage door opener has been used, on an average, from 2-4 times per day for 25 years in a residential dwelling, before the failure occurred.A schematic drawing of the garage door opener is shown in figure la, indicating the broken bolt location in the inner trolley of the garage door-opener assembly and the broken bolt as items 1 and 2, respectively.Also, the schematic drawing shows, in figure lb, the geometry of the connecting bolt.From figure lb, it is most likely that the connecting bolt has gone through alternating tensional stresses first, because of the operational nature of the garage door-opener.Then, the connecting bolt has gone through torsional stresses due to a misalignment of the cable, between the connecting bolt and the trolley, later in time, before the failure occurred.

Visual inspection
A visual inspection of the broken parts indicates that the broken bolt, see figure 1, has initially  suffered from a brittle fracture at and near the outer surface of the bolt, followed by an overloading, plastic deformation at the middle of the fracture surface.These findings are based on distinguished features of the fracture surface of the bolts.The fracture surface was found to consist of two distinguished regions.One is a smooth and flat region, surrounding the outer surface of the bolt, in which multi-cracks had initiated and propagated in a brittle fashion.The other is a 45 inclined region, in the middle of the fracture surface, indicating the final rupture was due to a plastic deformation.In other words, many cracks were initially triggered from the surface of the bolt and propagated along a direction of 90° with respect to loading axis of the bolt, until the cross sectional area of the bolt was reduced to the point that the loading capability of the bolt was no longer able to handle the loading.As a result, rapid plastic deformation occurred along the plane of the maximum shear stress, in the middle of the fracture surface.

Chemical connposition analysis
A quantitative WDS (wavelength dispersive spectroscopy), microanalysis revealed that the composition of the material of the connecting bolt is (weight %) 0.173 C, 0.76 Mn, 0.72 Cr, 0.17 Mo, 0.65 Ni, 0.2 Si, 0.09 P, 0.025 S and balance Fe.Accordingly, the material of the bolt is determined to be of a low alloying steel classified as a nickel, chromium, molybdenum low alloy steel.Also, the materials was found to have a hardness value around RB 59 (Rockwell hardness B scale), with ferritic and pearletic microstructures, see figure 2 for the microstructures of the broken bolt.From the literature^^^ this sort of material is typically used for relatively light transmission components.

Electron microscopy examinations
Examinations of the fracture surface of the bolt by a scanning electron microscope (SEM) lead to the following conclusions: -Failure of the bolt initially occurred due to a consequence of multi-sites of crack nucleation from the bottom of the threads of the bolt along the circumference of the bolt, where the local stress concentration had exceeded the critical stress concentration.Figure 3 shows an example of multi-sites of the crack nucleation which emanated from the bottom of the threads along the circumference of the bolt.In addition, figure 3 shows a flat region next to the bottom of the threads a long the circumference of the bolt and a rough (inclined) region in the middle of the sample.-SEM examinations revealed that the brittle failure of the bolt occurred due to fatigue damage phenomenon due to alternating torsional stresses.This finding is based on the documentation of fatigue striations along the direction of the crack propagation.Figure 4 is a fracture surface obtained from the flat and smooth area of the surface.It also exhibits fatigue striations along the crack propagation   Figura 5. Superficie de fractura obtenida sobre lo región inclinado de la mita de la superficie.Se muestra uno fracturo típico con picos y hendiduras debido o la sobrecargo de la roturo final del perno.
path.The spacing between the striations is nearly 14 [im.This observation is in agreement with works published in literature elsewhere^ \ In addition, figure 5 represents a fracture surface obtained from the incline region area in the middle of the surface.It is obvious that figure 5 exhibits a typical cup and cone of a ductile fracture, due to the over loading of the final failure of the bolt.

MATHEMATICAL MODEL
In order to describe the way that the connecting bolt failed from a design philosophy and fracture mechanics point of views, the following analysis is considered.The connecting bolt has specifications defined as (see Fig. 1).d = 0.626cm (major diameter), p = 0.545cm (screw pitch), T = 105 Kg'm(tightening torque).
Hence, one can analyze the design of the bolt against fatigue failure from any standard design text to determine whether the bolt is subjected to fatigue damage or not under normal operational conditions.From a design philosophy reported by Shigley^^ on bolts design against fatigue damage, the alternative tensional stress of the bolt is defined as: Failure case of a garage door opener K. HABIB AND A. AL-HAZZAA where, Ka, Kb, Ke, Kd are constants and can be determined based on the conditions of the material, and 0^^ = ultimate tensile stress of the bolt material.Therefore, a modified Goodman diagram can be plotted in which if the point (a^, O^) is found within the triangle 0 Se 0^^, this leads to an infinite fatigue life (see Fig. 6).On the other hand, if the point is found outside the triangle, this leads to a finite fatigue life.As a result, the bolt is expected to fail within a certain number of cyclic loading.
It is worth noting that, in the case of designing against fatigue damage of the bolt due to the alternative torsional stress as in the present case, the above mathematical analysis is applicable^ ^ with changing the tensile stress area (A|-)of the bolt to the shear stress area of the bolt (As), alternating tensile stress (a^) to alternating torsional stress(Ta), and mean tensile stress(a^^) to torsional mean stress(tm).One must also use the shear modulus of elasticity (G) rather than the modulus of the elasticity (E).The relationship between G and E is defined as the following: where.Also, the mean stress in the bolt is defined as: where, p. = J'lx = the preload (initial) load of the bolt, r = d/2 = radius of the bolt.
Since Gg and O^ can be calculated from knowing the dimensions of the bolt and the material properties, thus a point of (G^) ^m) ^^^ ^^e plotted in a modified Goodman diagram^^ after calculating the endurance fatigue limit of the bolt.This allows to determine whether the design of the bolt against fatigue has a finite or infinite life.Since the endurance limit of the bolt is define as^ ^ Sg -Ka Kb Ke Kd Out where | Ll is the Poisson ratio of the bolt material, a property constant of the material.Furthermore, one must use the torsional endurance limit (Sse) rather than the tensile endurance limit (Se), in   In the present failure case, we assume that the design of the bolt was safe to sustain fatigue damage however for one reason or another the bolt failed for unaccountable factors such as sharp stress concentration at the bottom of the bolt thread (see Fig. 3).Also, from the striation spacing in figure 4, one can determine the stress intensity factor range during the propagation region of the crack from a fracture mechanics approach.The striation spacing is defined as"^^^ S = 6(AK/E)2 (6)

Mean stress
where AK = stress intensity factor range for the crack propagation.By knowing S, AK can be calculated.Since the criterion for safe design from fracture mechanics that AK must be less than AK^^ where AK^j^ is the stress intensity factor range for the threshold of crack propagation.Consequently, this leads to the fact that during the cyclic loading of the bolt AK exceeded AK^-i^ due to the presence of the stress concentration risers such as the one presented in figure 3, so eventually that led to the failure of the bolt.

(CrestFigure 1 .
Figure 1.a) A schematic drawing of the garage door, indicating the broken bolt location in the inner trolley of the garage door-opener assembly and the broken bolt as items 1 and 2, respectively.Also, the schematic drawing shows, in Figure 1 b, the geometry of the connecting bolt.

Figure 3 .Figuro 3 . 342 Figure 4 .
Figure3.Multi-sites of the crack nucleation which emanated from the bottom of the threads along the circumference of the bolt.Also, Figure3shows a flat region next to the bottom of the threads a long the circumference of the bolts and a rough (inclined) region in the middle of the sample.Figuro 3. Múltiples lugares de nucleoción de la grieto que se inician desde la base de la rosco a lo largo de la circunferencia del perno.También se muestra uno superficie plano próxima o lo base de la rosco a lo largo de lo circunferencia del perno y una zona deformado en la mitad de lo muestra.342

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Represents a fracture surface obtained from the incline region in the middle of the surface.Figure 5 exhibits a typical cup and cone of a ductile fracture, due to the over loading of the final failure of the bolt.

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.A modified Goodman diagram showing finite and infinite fatige life corresponding to the fwo positions of the point (Om' CJa).