Quote:
Originally Posted by critical
"The wheel could have had a some congregated defects in the lattice structure of the alloy that caused an amplified stress crack that propagated over time. Then if introduced to a large stress, the material defects agglomerate even more leading to crack propagation and subsequent plastic deformation. Very interesting to know the result of forgestar's failure analysis."
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That is completely and technically correct. Plastic deformation due to fatigue would also be possible explanation. Without a sudden, increased, point stress the crack may have reached a point unable to withstand even normal rotational and road impact stresses thus leading to structural failure. If in fact the wheel failed under normal driving conditions this would be plausible.