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Cracking of Telescopic Front Fork Tube During Field Operation

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Abstract

Telescopic front fork tube of the bike is manufactured by electrical resistance welding of pickled hot rolled strip followed by cold drawing. The fork undergoes cyclic loading during operation and is prone to crack along the weld. This paper presents the investigation of such a failure of fork at field. The investigation consists of visual inspection, chemical analysis, characterization of microstructure, and energy dispersive spectroscopy. The result of the analysis revealed that there was a pre-existing crack, known as hook crack, which lead to the cracking of the tube. The hook crack was slightly offset from the bond line, i.e., weld line between the edges of the cold drawn electrically welded seam. Metallographic examination exhibited that during field operation the pre-existing hook crack was surfaced out leading to crack in the pipe. Parallel separation/delamination due to upsetting of pipe edges during welding caused the “hook crack” formation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tata Steel, Scientific services, Jamshedpur, India

    Arthita Dey, Sharmistha Dhara, Tanmay Bhttacharyya & Sandip Bhattacharyya

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  1. Arthita Dey
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  2. Sharmistha Dhara
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  3. Tanmay Bhttacharyya
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  4. Sandip Bhattacharyya
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Correspondence to Arthita Dey.

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Dey, A., Dhara, S., Bhttacharyya, T. et al. Cracking of Telescopic Front Fork Tube During Field Operation. J Fail. Anal. and Preven. 13, 292–297 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11668-013-9683-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11668-013-9683-4

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