Materials 5

This is our assignment part for Materials, the course for fifth year mechanical engineers. Apparently it is a stainless steel swage fork terminal from a wind turbine, and the cable inside has failed. We have to work out how and why, and it is worth 50% of our course. This was taken on a lighting rig with my camera, and we then took photos of each individual strand on a stereo microscope. Next is the scanning electron microscope, cutting and tensile and hardness tests. Any ideas what part it actually is? We're clueless!

View large to see grain structure and fracture surfaces...

This morning after filling up on coffee I went to the library for a few hours and produced a beautiful Gantt chart before our lab. Back home to open my parcels (a ring and a Thermos mug which I bought myself as part of my birthday present from my grandparents, so thank you grandparents! and also a Jaguar Land Rover t-shirt for events), a cup of tea with my flatmate and back to work!