Non-specific failure modes are difficult to define
An engineer can protect against consequences of failures,
not necessarily failure mode.
In many cases failure modes are very difficult to define if
they are not specifically wear, fatigue, erosion or some
more obscure ones as in this list:
Wear
Fatigue
Erosion
Corrosion
Fretting
Impact
Stress Rupture
Fracture
Galling
Seizure
Spalling
Buckling
Yielding
And of course, combinations of these.
What to do:
Focus on cause of failure, define mode if possible, and be
certain to
define failure behavior (graph of evident
condition/performance against
usage) as this will determine the necessary maintenance
procedure.