Wiktionary
n. Loss of the load-carrying capacity of a component or member within a structure or of the structure itself. Structural failure is initiated when the material in a structure is stressed to its strength limit, thus causing fracture or excessive deformations.
Usage examples of "structural failure".
This was the beginning of the structural failure of the MS-IC's propellant tank, which culminated in the separation of the aft dome of the tank.
Buildings using it would tolerate a major fire for four hours before structural failure, allowing time for evacuation of the building below the fire and airlift by helicopters from the roof for people trapped above.
But what if some kind of geological or structural failure caused it to come up outside the containment building?
Maybe a mid-air collision, maybe structural failure, maybe there's a bomb aboard&mdash.
The explosive decompression caused by the structural failure also inflicted extensive damage to the delicate equipment housed in that section.
Maybe a mid-air collision, maybe structural failure, maybe there's a bomb aboard-it could be anything.
The ship's curved-space generators were powerful enough to buffer a steady thirty gees of acceleration, and absorb the jolt of any impact unless it was large enough to cause a major structural failure.
As far back as the 1920s he had installed these weird chimneylike sails on boats, and one of his large craft had nearly succeeded in crossing the Atlantic before a sail collapsed from structural failure.
The hydraulics problem was a result of a stress, structural failure .
In addition, they are doubtless equipped with any number of fail-safe and backup systems designed to deal with the first sign of structural failure.