Failure Analysis

Failure analysis is the process of collecting and analyzing all the data to identify the cause of a failure and how to prevent it from recurring. It is an important discipline in many industries, such as the electronics industry, petrochemicals industry where it is a vital tool used in the development of new methods & products and for the improvement of existing methods & products. The main principle of failure analysis is a forensic inquiry into the method or product upon the failure. Such inquiry can be conducted using scientific analytical methods such as mechanical, Non-destructive and electrical testing measurements, or through speculative approach when the data is not available but an action has to be taken.

Failure analysis and prevention are important functions to all of the engineering disciplines. The materials engineer often plays an important role in the analysis of failures, whether failure occurs during manufacturing or production processing or component/product fails in service.

Features of root cause failure analysis capabilities include:

• Evaluation of field failures
• Evaluation of life cycle test failure
• Identification of failure mode
• Contamination analysis
• Corrosion and environmental effects
• Photographic documentation
• Broad failure analysis experience
• Fracture evaluations
• Identification of product defects
• Failure analysis of polymer and rubber components

Spectro’s Failure Analysis reports provide a clear picture of the root cause, and include recommendations to avoid future failures - from component design, through material selection and processing. Over the last few years many such types of evaluations have been performed.