Failure Analysis
RJ Lee Group experts undertake forensic inquiry into a failed component, product or system to identify the root cause of failure and provide an appropriate remedial action plan.
The Root of the Matter
Our experts have more than a century of collective experience in root cause failure analysis at all stages of a product life cycle. This experience often leads to our involvement at the beginning of the product cycle, when changes are made to the design or the system, or when new regulations or standards require changes to the product or process. Still, identification of an initiation site or a defect alone is not enough; it is the root cause of failure that compels corrective action. Using our documented results, we interpret the relationship between the root cause and the problem and provide a course of corrective action.
Scientific Detective Work
Like a detective at a crime scene, our experts begin by surveying the failed part(s) using our most readily available tool — the eye — to determine how to proceed. We interview the client to understand the circumstances of failure, the operating conditions and the maintenance provided. Our experts then reconstruct the mode of failure and identify materials characteristics that may have contributed to failure. Armed with these results, we assist our client in minimizing or eliminating their effects. We provide expert analytical support from the micro-level of a failed semiconductor to identifying flaws in hot worked mill rolls 10 feet in diameter. Our full service laboratory includes a suite of electron microscopy and spectroscopy methods that are critical in failure investigations. Our capabilities include:
- Full-Service Metallography Laboratory
- Sample cross sectioning, drilling and cutting
- Mounting, grinding and polishing
- Etching and hardness testing
- Microscopy
- Stereo-microscope for fractography and surface assessment
- Optical microscopy for microstructural analysis
- Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for phase identification, local chemistry and fracture surface assessment
- Chemical Analysis
- Surface Analysis
- Welding Analysis
- Filler metal selection
- Microstructural development
- Alloy development
- Failure analysis
- Non-Destructive Evaluations
- Dye penetration
- Magnetic particle inspection
- Impact echo
- Radiography
- Corrosion
- Assessment and testing
- Materials selection for a corrosive environment
Back to the Future
Root cause failure investigations provide our clients critical information that can be used to prevent future failure incidents before they occur. Properly incorporated into buying practice, manufacturing process, or material selection, the data that we compile through our investigative research, analyses and interpretation reduce the possibility of similar failures in the future and improves the quality and reliability of the product.
