Charles Davis Jan 31, 2019:

Why slaiber, not eslíber? Presumably because whoever wrote this word based the spelling on having heard sliver pronounced with a long i, as in "driver". That in turn would arise from someone originally having seen "sliver" written and mispronounced it. So in Mexican metallurgical circles they use the English word for this, but mispronounce it.

Taña Dalglish Jan 31, 2019:

@ Phil Sorry, I realised too late that you had said "slivers". Apologies.

philgoddard Jan 31, 2019:

I believe there's a strong chance my suggestion is correct, and I've posted it as an answer.
Taña: I said sliver, not silver :-)

Robert Carter Jan 31, 2019:

I couldn't find any reference to this word other than in the Mexican Official Standard (NOM) from which your question presumably arose. It doesn't look like Spanish in any case, so it's probably a mispronunciation of a word from another language.
I had a quick look at types of metallurgical defects that exist in English (hot spots, hot tears, and inclusions are mentioned, which I think relates to some of the terms mentioned here, e.g., puntos duros, quemaduras, inclusiones). I couldn't find anything that resembles "slaiber," or variations on that spelling, "eslaiber", "slaiver", etc., there either, though further investigation of "metallurgical defects" or even "casting defects" is probably a good starting point.

Taña Dalglish Jan 31, 2019:

This unknown word "slaiber" appears only in the NOM/DOF (Mexico). I believe it is an error despite occurring several times (NOM-009-ASEA-2017).

https://www.google.com/search?q="Defectos metalúrgicos local...

semarnat11_C - DOF
www.dof.gob.mx/normasOficiales/7500/semarnat11_C/semarnat11...
3.10 Defecto: Es una Indicación de un tipo o magnitud que excede los criterios de aceptación durante el Análisis de integridad. ..... guarderías y asilos) localizados dentro del círculo de impacto potencial. ..... Defectos metalúrgicos localizados (puntos duros, quemaduras, áreas de segregación de inclusiones y slaiber).

philgoddard Jan 31, 2019:

It looks like it could be a misspelling of an English word. Spanish tends to confuse b and v. Could it be slivers?