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Frances Richards, Senior Editor
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Editor, ASM News
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EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Mario Epler, Chair, Carpenter Technology Corp.
Yu-Ping Yang, Vice Chair, Edison Welding Institute
Ellen Cerreta, Past Chair, Los Alamos National Lab
William Lenling, Board Liaison
Laura Addessio, PCC Structurals Inc.
Arvind Agarwal, Florida International University
Gerald Bruck, Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp.
Steven Claves, Alcoa Inc.
Adam Farrow, Los Alamos National Lab
Nia Harrison, Ford Motor Co.
Alan Luo, The Ohio State University
Roger Narayan, UNC-NCSU
Scott Olig, Vision Point Systems
Nina Pang, Boston University
Somuri Prasad, Sandia National Lab
Fei Ren, Oak Ridge National Lab
Michael Rigsbee, North Carolina State University
Kumar Sridharan, University of Wisconsin
Jaimie Tiley, U.S. Air Force Research Lab
Cong Wang, Saint-Gobain High Performance
Materials
ASM BOARD OF TRUSTEES
C. Ravi Ravindran, President
Sunniva R. Collins, Vice President
Robert J. Fulton, Treasurer
Gernant E. Maurer, Immediate Past President
Jeffrey A. Hawk
William J. Lenling
Linda S. Schadler
Iver Anderson
Mitchell Dorfman
James C. Foley
Jacqueline M. Earle
John R. Keough
Zi-Kui Liu
Thomas S. Passek, Secretary and Managing
Director
STUDENT BOARD MEMBERS
Virginia K. Judge,Anthony Lombardi, Myrissa N. Maxfield
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materials wi tness
ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES • AUGUST 2014 2
Aliens and other gremlins
Have I ever mentioned the aliens that live inside my car doors?
They occasionally try to contact me using startling and
screechy“radio type”sounds, like someone tuning a shortwave de-
vice trying to find a usable frequency. If you recall Close Encoun-
ters of the Third Kind or Contact, you know the kinds of sounds I’m
talking about. Mind you, these alien voices only occur when I am
alone. Friends and family are skeptical of the entire situation. Me-
chanics are of no help either. The ones I’ve talked to blame it on
“probably something in the electronic control unit.”
Or not.
This brings me to the pure joy I experienced working on our annual “Failure Analy-
sis” issue, and more specifically, the article beginning on page 23 about electronic
system failure analysis. As it turns out, I may not be so crazy after all. The author talks
about the growing complexity of electronic systems and devices, as designs become
smaller and smaller and incorporate extremely complex materials and processes. He
goes on to say, “Today’s automobiles are similarly complex, containing as many as
100 electronic control units (ECUs) or more, for systems ranging from backup cameras
to lane-changing warning systems.” My favorite part of the article (spoiler alert!) is
this: “To make failure analysis even more difficult, many failures occur only intermit-
tently. [Now imagine this phrase as an echo.] System challenges vary widely by in-
dustry and application, with each functional element in a design often requiring
specialized domain knowledge to understand a failure’s root causes and mecha-
nisms.” Now, if only I could get someone to bring the focused ion beam described in
the article over to my car to analyze the ECU.
Keeping pace with the complexity and financial burden of ultramodern electronic
system failures is the age-old problem of corrosion. According to the authors of our
feature article on prevention methods (page 15), direct and indirect corrosion costs in
the U.S. now exceed $1 trillion dollars—roughly 6% of GDP. Making matters even more
challenging are all the new technologies being developed, especially regarding energy
production. For example, the authors point out an urgent need for affordable corro-
sion-resistant alloys that can be used in deep offshore high temperature/high pressure
oil and gas wells. Regular inspections of corrosion-susceptible structures using state-of-
the-art monitoring techniques will also go a long way in detecting and avoiding prob-
lems before failure occurs.
Elevated risks of catastrophic failure also arise from fastener fatigue. Because fas-
teners are so critical to the lifetimes of engineered structures, we address this important
issue“head on”beginning on page 18. Here we take a look at fatigue failure of threaded
fasteners, using a case study to explore some typical issues. The bottom line? Don’t be
afraid to tighten those bolts and apply a goodly amount of preload. Well, it’s actually
more complicated than that, but you will need to read the article to learn the details.
Next month we will highlight some of the most interesting emerging technologies
in the world of materials science and engineering as we look ahead to MS&T14, taking
place October 12-16 in Pittsburgh. It promises to be a very exciting week and we hope
to see you there! Mark your calendars now.