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I am not an engineer, but deal with machines that spend a lot of time in high stress conditions.
I know what over torqueing can do, and what loosened fasteners can do.
With a little analysis, I feel pretty confident that they will be able to tell if the bolt broke in tensile or sideways. (That's not really shear, what would that be?).
Even if everything was perfectly in place, without knowing how he landed from where, how can we know?
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If I don't like someone, I ignore them, but then again, I don't let another man have power over me. I'm silly that way.
All I will say is that sometimes in the pro pits, you see way to many T-Handles and not enough torque wrenches. In addition, there’s a lack of mistake proofing and process controls to mitigate mistakes. Using a paint pen to mark torqued bolts for example.
There’s a reason F1 race teams use process control and fastener data logging on every single connection on the car.
Shit happens, and when it does, parts break. That doesn’t mean there’s a design flaw, it means the part(s) were being used outside of the design parameters, in corner conditions to boot, something is going to fail. Guaranteed.
Dude we get it you’re cosplaying a team manager role. No one cares.
Just by looking at it you can see there are indications on the bolt and nothing on the clamp.
If you sent that for analysis, the grain structure would show clearly.
When you get to stuff like this, at the top level, the drawing will even state if it can be made out of flat or round stock, and it will specify the grain direction too. That is on top of a detailed material spec, which the best manufacturers would test per batch, irrespective of what the certs tell them.
As a guy that makes his living in Quality Control and Measurement, this is bang on.
Knowing that every part is correct to drawing, and correct to material spec before it even gets to the car is what separates those that know , from those that dont... its no good trying to do a post mortem on parts when they are in two bits , if you didnt measure them before hand.
I have been called in to measure parts that have done 2 days testing , been hand carried back to the factory on a plane, checked against the original measurements, been sentenced by the design engineer, and flown back the same day to be fitted on the car for another 2 days , before doing the same again.
So when things break, and they will. nobody is asking ' was it right to drawing' because there will be a full report filed that it was before it was cleared to build.
When you get to aftermarket parts , their will be people who use the fact that it was made on a CNC or a jig to validate that it 'must be right' and those that actually measure them properly , to a proper drawing, and use process control to ensure there are no escapes that are out of limit.
What i will say, is that the bolt that failed , looks to have broken across the end of the thread, which is a typical failure.
A top spec bolt will be thread rolled, and one that is properly loaded will have the thread runout into an undercut with controlled rads in the bottom. Even though that reduces the cross section, it totally removes the point loading at the end of the thread.
I have worked with metallurgists on mechanical failures like this and there is no way you can look at that photo and tell that the bolt was over-tightened. A little quick to throw the mechanic under the bus IMO. Unless there is a good reason to assume that... i.e., are those other similar failures also a result of over-tightening, or did the mechanic say he cranked on it? if so, then it is probably time to emphasize proper installation in the product literature!
Pit Row
I'd clarify that in no way am I knocking anyones product or saying anything failed improperly. just pointing out some speculation. Do we have several people over tightening this style clamp leading to failures or are these overload events FROM crashes that the product(s) wasn't designed to withstand?
I think the post from the self-professed non-engineer on page 3 was good. Re: probable failure mode and it being loaded outside the design parameters.
you should tell that to GUYB
Besides, dudes who are ranting and name calling about this don’t even race moto, or even own a newer KTM, so why should I waste my time?
Replace or non issue?? (I’m already leaning towards replace)
If it’s real, replace the top triple clamp.
And ask KTM if they‘ve ever seen a crack in that area…
Post a reply to: KTM broke in half.