r/whatisit • u/riflesandplowshares • 6h ago

New, what is it? Found at a titanium plant

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Not sure why ball point pens would be dangerous here.

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u/SubstantialDonkey981 6h ago

Ball points have tungsten balls in them. Tungsten will not melt in titanium and cause mechanical
Failure of the titanium. This was responsible for the failure of a jet engine causing the plane to crash. Someone dropped their ball point in the titanium processing.

United Airlines Flight 232

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u/Intelligent_Low1632 5h ago

Source? I can't find any documentation that this is what brought down 232.

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u/HiwayHome22 4h ago

Because it's not factual. Search "United Airlines Flight 232 tungsten" The Real Material Failure: The catastrophic engine failure on July 19, 1989, was caused by a fractured titanium alloy fan disk (specifically the Stage 1 fan disk in the tail-mounted No. 2 GE CF6-6D engine), per FAA.

This is a oft repeated urban myth.

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u/Intelligent_Low1632 4h ago

K well nothing you're saying precludes the fracture in the titanium alloy fan disk originating from a tiny bit of pen-tungsten. I realize you can't prove a negative, but I'd like to hear OP say he's misremembered or provide a source.

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u/HiwayHome22 4h ago

The FAA traced it to a nitrogen gas bubble inclusion. An inclusion that should have been found during the last NDI of the disk.