COURSE OVERVIEW

 

This practical and highly-interactive course includes real-life case studies and exercises where participants will be engaged in a series of interactive small groups and class workshops. 

 

Metallurgical Failure Analysis is one of the most useful techniques for ensuring the safety and reliability of products and plant facilities/components. The main benefits are the prevention of failure in a similar equipment, and improvement in useful service life through design or material modifications. Failure Analysis of metallic components has been the preoccupation of the metallurgical community for years. Process plants usually have an excellent staff of “static equipment” inspectors, whose services prove invaluable during machinery component failure analysis. The strengths of the metallurgical inspectors lie in solving service failures based on the standard metallurgical failure modes and their causes. 

 

To increase the odds of completing a conclusive Metallurgical failure analysis while at the same time saving time and money, investigations should be carried out using a systemic approach. It is important to note however, that it is often impossible to foresee results that might require the investigator to go back and repeat a test. A simple way reduces the occurrence of this is to go into a case well informed on how similar systems have failed. An excellent source of for this type of information is indeed this course as we include herein 39 case studies that will be discussed during the last 3 days of the course. This course is therefore an invaluable source to the beginner and the expert. 
 

This course discusses the various types of failure mechanisms and the process of conducting a metallurgical failure analysis. It contains a general outline of the various mechanisms that are responsible for failures, and describes the procedures and laboratory techniques used in metallurgical failure analysis. Finding the root cause of failures through such investigations can provide valuable feedback to the design and manufacturing groups. In addition to the material properties, component failures are very much affected by the service environment. Engineers should be aware of the potential failure mechanisms so that proper precautions can be taken during the design stage of a system. 

 

The course explores a systematic approach to successful metallurgical failure analysis and troubleshooting programs, including the determination of goals, use of checklists and setting up a failure analysis team. By reference to 39 case studies, it will be shown that such a systematic program can lead to significant failure reductions in many types of equipment and structures. 

 

Equipment failure events will be reviewed and participants are encouraged to bring to the seminar relevant assembly drawings or such components as failed bearings, gears, mechanical seals and similar machine elements for failure analysis and discussion.