Failure modes
How imaging hardware actually breaks — written for biomeds, refurbishers, and procurement.
22 entries
Anode Bearing Wear
Mechanical wear of the rotating-anode bearing assembly inside an X-ray tube — the second principal end-of-life pathway for CT tubes…
Coil Channel Dropout (MRI)
Failure of an individual receive-channel within a multi-element MRI coil — by far the most common MRI receive-coil failure mode across all…
Console / Workstation HDD Failure
Hard-drive (or SSD) failure on imaging-system acquisition consoles, reconstruction engines, and review workstations — the most common…
Cooling-Loop Failure
Failure or degradation of the chilled-water (or coolant-loop) thermal-management system that supports CT, MRI, linac, and cath-lab…
Cryostat Helium Boil-Off (MRI)
Gradual loss of liquid helium from the superconducting-magnet cryostat above the design boil-off rate — the canonical operating-cost…
CT Tube Arcing
Vacuum-integrity loss inside a rotating-anode CT X-ray tube — the most common end-of-life failure mode on modern CT tubes. As tube vacuum…
Detector Dead-Pixel Growth
Cumulative single-pixel failure across an X-ray flat-panel detector over operational lifetime — the principal wear-out failure mode on…
DR Detector Drop Damage
Physical impact damage to a wireless flat-panel DR detector — by far the dominant failure mode on mobile DR equipment and a meaningful…
Gantry Drive Wear (CT, Cath Lab, Linac)
Mechanical wear of the rotation / motion drive system on gantry-class imaging equipment — applies to CT (continuous gantry rotation), cath…
Gradient Amplifier Thermal Event (MRI)
Over-temperature shutdown or component failure in the MRI gradient-amplifier cabinet — the principal failure mode on the high-power…
HV Generator Arcing
Internal arcing or corona-discharge events in a high-voltage X-ray generator — the failure mode at the kV-source stage of the imaging…
Image Intensifier Aging (Legacy Fluoro / C-Arm)
Gradual loss of image quality on the image-intensifier (II) tubes used in legacy fluoroscopy and C-arm equipment. Modern flat-panel…
Klystron End-of-Life
Gradual end-of-life on the klystron microwave amplifier — the principal RF-source failure mode on high-energy clinical linacs. The…
Magnet Quench (MRI)
Sudden loss of superconductivity in an MRI magnet — the dramatic, high-profile MRI failure mode. When a section of the superconducting…
MLC Leaf-Positioning Drift
Gradual deviation of multi-leaf-collimator leaf positions from commanded values — the principal wear-out failure mode on linac MLCs across…
MRI RF Amplifier Failure
Failure or degradation of the high-power RF (radio-frequency) amplifier that drives the MRI body coil — the transmit-side of the imaging…
Patient-Table Positioning Encoder Drift
Drift in the position-feedback encoders that report patient-table location to the imaging system — a cross-modality failure pattern…
PET SiPM Module Aging
Long-term degradation of silicon-photomultiplier modules in modern PET-CT and PET-MR detectors — the principal modern PET wear-out failure…
Scintillator Crystal Aging
Long-term degradation of scintillator crystals used in gamma cameras (NaI(Tl)) and PET detectors (LSO / LYSO / BGO) — the principal…
Slip-Ring Wear (CT)
Wear of the rotating-gantry slip-ring assembly that delivers high-voltage power and data signals from the stationary side of the CT…
Tube Filament Wear
Cumulative degradation of the electron-emission filament inside an X-ray tube — the tungsten / thoriated-tungsten cathode that emits…
Ultrasound Probe Cable Failure
Cable-bundle failure between an ultrasound transducer and the system connector — the dominant failure mode on ultrasound transducers…