A review of a series of studies on plant failure across Europe and the United States identified component wear as the cause of 70 percent to 80 percent of the loss of usefulness of machinery. Corrosion accounted for 20 percent of the figure while physical wear was the major component of the remaining 50 percent.

Physical wear was caused in some instances by incorrect lubrication at the interface between moving surfaces. This was generally due to use of the wrong grade of lubricant, degradation of the lubricant through oxidation, abrasion by contaminant particles, or to overloading of the component displacing the oil film. There was nothing unusual in these results, as these types of failure mechanisms were considered obvious for lubrication systems, but the studies indicated that these types of failures were not the most common mechanism present.

The more common causes of wear and failure were related to a series of fatigue mechanisms. These are associated to some extent with low-stress, high-cycle fatigue due to bearing and shaft misalignment and imbalance. The majority of failures however are related to microstresses caused when contaminants bridge the oil film and generate high-stress concentrations on component surfaces. The repeated effect of these microstresses eventually results in subsurface cracking leading to spalling of component surfaces.

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