Equipment failures are often caused by multiple mechanical and chemical interaction. Root-Cause-Failure-Analysis (RCFA) is comp0licated by the fact that chemical failure mechnisms can disguise themselves as mechanical failure mechanisms and vice versa. Initial impressions may seem plausible, but corrective actions will be ineffective if RCFA fails to distinguish between chemical and mechanical causal factors. The following two case histories illustrate this point. They demonstrate the importance of resolveing all ambiguity in the RCFA process.
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