Plastic Failures Associated with Metal Fasteners

The need to secure plastic components is prevalent in the manufacture of assemblies in many industries. Joining plastic components to other plastic parts or metal parts often involves the use of mechanical fasteners, such as screws, inserts, or rivets. The joining of plastic parts is inherently more complicated than assembling two metal components because of the fundamental differences in physical properties, including strength, chemical resistance and susceptibility to creep and stress relaxation.

Case Studies will be presented to illustrate failures associated with the interaction between plastic components and metal fasteners. The presented cases will illustrate how the failure analysis process was used to identify the failure mechanism as well as the primary factors responsible for the failures. The cases depict representative failures involving varied designs and service conditions.

At the end of this presentation you will:

• Better recognize the potential pitfalls of joining plastic components using metal fasteners.
• Appreciate how failure analysis techniques can identify how and why plastic failure occurs.

Directly following this event we will host a live Q&A session for up to 30 minutes to cover plastic failures associated with metal fastener related questions.