Broken shovel

Please, accept my apology for incorrect details, Scotsman - did not mean to put words in your mouth, especially something that you haven't said / didn't mean.

I'll try to use age as an excuse for deteriorating memory and / or comprehension

The flames on the handle of the Pit Boss are a no-go for me. I am considering BD Deploy 7, but now I see others mentioned as best in test so who knows...

Cheers
Ivo

Just to clarify since my name is being used.
I have no problem with" lightweight safety gear" whatever that means... I specifically have a problem with shovels with lexan or plastic blades and the scoopy thing Koda is referring to.
I have a big assed shovel.... The PIT BOSS and when I whip it out....many a ski tourer has swooned over it's girth.

These forums are amazing.

As a composite, I think the root of the failures come to light, with all of the thoughts and opinions from all of the people (and their diverse backgrounds) on these threads.

There is a fatigue portion of the crack, and there is a ‘catastrophic’ portion, where the crack couldn’t support another cycle and just failed. 

I would like to add one bit to the content, that was only sort-of addressed.
This shovel was once a flat sheet of material. A ‘flat pattern’ of a shovel, if you will. It looks like there is an edge at the larger radius of the edge-of-part common to what will become the handle-tunnel that could use some attention. When the forming of the handle-tunnel occurs, one of these edges gets ‘twisted’ and becomes the most highly loaded material for a prying condition (we all know that prying is bad, yet do it anyway to some degree, because of the density of the snow around here) where the handle is moving in the shovel face direction. When you think of how long the shovel arm is and the amount of stress that this tiny area of material is trying to react, it is easy to speculate that this shovel will have a finite lifespan. (Ref: the fella who broke his first two.)

Truths:
1) Aluminum fatigues. There is no way around it. It is highly susceptible to poor fatigue details.
2) This shovel is built by man (or machine.) Everything is statistical, per even the best processes, and unacceptable flaws end up in production from time to time. When purchasing ANY gear, really, you have to understand (or guess at) how the parts were built and imagine what things would be difficult (i.e. add cost to produce) and examine closely.  You can surprise yourself with what flawed-gear you can discover for sale on the rack. Grab the next article in the stack, it may---or may not---be better.

A recent shovel test in refrozen avalanche debris showed that shovels made with tempered aluminum stand up much better and some non tempered shovel designs fail quite quickly and  BCA shovel tested failed at the handle.

www.avalanche.ca/adx/aspx/adxGetMedia.as...in+shovel+review.pdf

The issue is what Al alloy and what temper, not merely tempered vs. non-tempered .  I would guess that all or nearly all the tested non-plastic avy shovel blades, good and bad, are made of some sort of tempered aluminum alloy.  That article endorsed 6061 T6 alloy, i.e., a 6061 alloy with a T6 heat treat/aging.  The pregnant implication is that other alloys with different heat treat/aging tempers would not work as well.  For example, 2024 T3 alloy is, indeed, "tempered," but it would probably not be a good material for an avy shovel.  See www.matweb.com/reference/aluminumtemper.aspx