Failure Prevention

Failure investigations help clients prevent failures, extend component service life, and establish inspection intervals. SwRI conducts analyses to:

• Determine the causes of failure
• Identify design and operating deficiencies
• Improve reliability and safety
• Lower operating costs
• Provide impartial evaluations

Primary Failure Analysis

SwRI engineers have extensive experience in identifying failure mechanisms including:

• High- and low-cycle fatigue
• Stress corrosion cracking
• High-temperature degradation
• Brittle failure mechanisms
• Fretting and wear mechanisms
• Welding defects
• Petrochemical corrosion mechanisms

Failure Prevention Facilities & Equipment

Visit Metallurgical Analysis Laboratory to learn more about our equipment and services, including:

• Three scanning electron microscope (SEM) systems for fractographic and metallographic analysis
• Servo-hydraulic loading stage for SEM to enable in situ analysis of controlled fractures under high magnifications
• Powder X-ray diffractometer for crystallographic analysis of materials and deposit analysis
• Two profilometers for surface roughness measurements
• Three energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS) systems, coupled to each SEM, to identify elemental composition of materials, such as aggressive corrosion products
• Scanning auger microprobe spectrometer to identify elemental composition of contaminants and microstructural phases
• Scanning-tunneling and atomic force microscopes (STM/AFM) for analysis of nanoscale surface topography
• Metallographs for heat treat verification, microstructural examination, and material characterization
• Portable microscope, hardness testing unit, and replication kit for field investigations
• Fully equipped mechanical testing laboratory, including 40 closed-loop, servo-hydraulically controlled mechanical test systems
• Autoclaves for high-pressure and high-temperature corrosion investigations
• Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrophotometer for molecular-level compositional analysis of non-metallics
• Raman spectroscopic imaging and microanalysis system for spatially mapped compositional analysis of various materials
• HEPA filtrated metals lab and hot cells capable of handling multicurie specimens

Powerful Scanning Electron Microscope

SwRI’s SEM features energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer to localize analysis and produce clear, sharp images of objects magnified over 1,000,000 times.

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Additional Failure Analysis Services

When investigations require in-depth studies of failure mechanisms, SwRI applies:

• Finite element analysis
• Damage tolerance analysis
• Life extension predictions
• Mechanical testing
• In-service condition assessment
• Nondestructive evaluation
• Maintenance optimization
• Design or redesign