No Stupid Questions

2717 readers

40 users here now

There is no such thing as a Stupid Question!

Don't be embarrassed of your curiosity; everyone has questions that they may feel uncomfortable asking certain people, so this place gives you a nice area not to be judged about asking it. Everyone here is willing to help.

ex. How do I change oil
ex. How to tie shoes
ex. Can you cry underwater?

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca still apply!

Thanks for reading all of this, even if you didn't read all of this, and your eye started somewhere else, have a watermelon slice 🍉.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

otter

Kokomheart

What's the piece that's supposed to fail first (and prevent damage) called? (self.nostupidquestions)

submitted 2 years ago by darthskull to c/nostupidquestions

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The little metal pegs on a snow blower or a fuse in a circuit are examples I can think of.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

'Failsafe' the word you are looking for?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

"Ackshyually" incoming...

Failsafe has a specific meaning, describing a system that enters an inherently safe state in the case of a failure.

For example, semi truck parking brakes are actually disengaged by applying air pressure to the system; without air pressure the brakes are engaged automatically by heavy springs. Therefore most failures in the braking system would just result in being unable to disengage the brakes, as opposed to a truck rolling away.

So, while a sacrificial component like OP is describing could be designed as part of a failsafe, generally it's a different design principle at play.