Metallography, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), STEM, X-Ray Diffraction, Electrochemistry, Lasers; sometimes any of these may not really beats a spark test, a ball peen hammer, and thirty years of solving the same problem over and over again. However, without properly characterizing the failure attributes, corrosion debris, or environment involved in the failure, the root cause of the failure may be coming from an unexpected source, and may remain to cause the replacement components to fail.

State of the art materials evaluation techniques support reliability engineering efforts to maintain and improve overall plant performance.  Materials failure analysis is a specialized, but important, part of the systems approach to plant reliability.  Frequently, materials failure analysis is the first step on the path of determining the root cause failure mechanisms.

If the material itself is the root cause of the failure, metallographic and mechanical properties evaluation techniques can point toward necessary changes in the specifications or quality assurance programs to change or restrict the use of unsatisfactory materials. Advanced investigative techniques such as SEM combined with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) provide powerful microanalytical capabilities to define failure mechanisms, perform elemental chemical analyses, and examine and identify corrosion products. (Fig- 2)

Corrosion Testing Laboratories (CTL) specializes in the practical application of advanced analytical techniques in studying failures and recommending corrective actions. They specialize in determining how components fail and work with you to find the root cause of the failures and the most efficient corrective action, and then work to determine if it is better to take corrective action to deal with the immediate concerns or pursue a root cause analysis, which determines the decisions and/or conditions that resulted in an inappropriate design or material to be used in the first place. (Fig- 3)

CTL performs failure analysis for a wide variety of industries. We have clients from the Energy, Construction, Pharmaceutical, Environmental and Food Processing industries among others. They have a large number of failure analysis clients and routinely do work for large and small companies alike. They tailor their investigations to the needs of our clients. Because of this, they have a number of different investigation levels and a variety of reporting methods. they realize that the cost of the failure is more than just the cost of replacing the part. The significant costs of a failure are usually associated with downtime, production losses, accidents, and customer dissatisfaction. Mission of CTL is to help avoid the costs of repeating the failure with its associated costs, and take the appropriate action. (Fig- 4)

CTL will use their analytical tools and expertise to define the mode of failure (fatigue, corrosion, material defect, overload, etc.). Their modern facility, equipped with SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope), EDS (Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectrometer), FTIR (Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectroscope) and other metallographic and analytical equipment, provides our scientists and technicians with the tools they need to expedite the investigation of your failure. Corrosion lab of CTL compliments the failure analysis investigations by allowing testing of replacement materials for your application in a laboratory environment or in the field.  During their failure investigations, quality and traceability are followed in accordance to recognized industrial standards. (Fig- 5)

Parts and components failures can be caused by various reasons. The following represents a number of examples of the types of failures that can occur along with some brief case histories, drawn from CTL’s archives.