"Allocation Failure" is cause of GC to kick is not correct. It is an outcome of GC operation.
GC kicks in when there is no space to allocate( depending on region minor or major GC is performed). Once GC is performed if space is freed good enough, but if there is not enough size it fails. Allocation Failure is one such failure. Below document have good explanation https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/vm/gctuning/g1_gc.html