At NSL, we utilize our comprehensive materials testing laboratories, instrumentation, and resources to ensure that every component in your product can withstand the most demanding applications to adequately perform its intended function. Clients choose NSL because our results provide the answers to their most difficult problems. We can complete the toughest failure analysis jobs when product quality and customer satisfaction is essential.
Why is Failure Analysis Important?
In our failure analysis lab, we can help determine which conditions or mechanical components are causing your product to not perform as expected. This information can help you identify weaknesses in your manufacturing, assembly, inspection, or delivery processes. By getting the complete answers to why your component is deficient, future failures can be prevented. Watch NSL metallurgist and failure analyst Dave Kovarik explain failure analysis:
How is Material Failure Defined?
A failure is ultimately defined by a product failing to perform sufficiently in a given situation. Failure can include a material breaking, bending, weakening, or wearing; our job at NSL is to investigate the different components of a certain application to determine the cause of the application failing. You may have an idea of what the main cause of a failure is, but there is often more to the story than can be seen without professional failure analysis.
What Does Failure Testing Include?
The first step is always a consultation to understand if the failure may be related to a process or the material. Our scientists and metallurgists have extensive experience in the field and in the lab. A typical failure analysis can combine the testing resources of our laboratory facilities, including:
- Chemical Testing Laboratory for elemental analysis
- Metallurgical Laboratory for metallography and mechanical testing
- Polymer Laboratory for analysis of physical properties
- Ophthalmic Laboratory for detecting failures in coating adhesion in the hardcoat and AR stacks
What Can Failure Analysis Determine?
Our failure analysis services help identify problems associated with product failures, including:
- Finding major flaws or indications of misuse
- Comparison of materials to specification
- Fracture characteristics and origin
- Heat treatment condition and general material quality
- Structure uniformity
- Material conformance to requirements
Consulting Services
Not all material failures are the result of material properties. Sometimes, external factors cause materials to fail. NSL’s consulting services include the analytical testing capabilities of our testing labs along with the technical skills of our metallurgists and chemists to help you identify and troubleshoot problem areas beyond materials testing. Our technical expertise includes inorganic and polymer chemists, metallurgists, material engineers, and retained consultants available to assist you from design to production. The experts at NSL Analytical understand how to best communicate with you to explain how certain external conditions lead to a component failure. Then, we work with you to determine how to best address the situation, so your material or product performs as expected.
Put our expertise to work for you! Contact us for more information or request a quote.