Table 4.

Common failure modes of an SV-AUC run and their root causes.

Error / failure	Manifestation	Potential root cause
Loading sample on the reference side and vice versa	Erroneous absorbance readings, potentially incorrect lamp intensity set	Analyst error
Cell leakage during the run	Vacuum decrease/jumps, moving meniscus, fitting artifacts, significantly unequal column heights after the run	Inappropriate cell sealing
Cell leakage at the start of a run at 60k/50k rpm	Moving meniscus, vacuum decrease, lack of expected data type during fitting	Inappropriate cell sealing
Contamination from another sample	Unexpected species in the c(s) distribution	Inappropriate cleaning of cell and centerpiece
Unstable temperature during the run	Best-fit meniscus is far off the optically discerned meniscus; poor fits in initial scans	Insufficient temperature equilibration time
High solute (reference) absorbance	Low signal-to-noise, poor fits with high RMSD	Absorbing excipients present