Engineering Failure Analysis of Metallic Materials

At the end of this course, the students should be able to: 1. situate engineering failure analysis under the broader field of forensic engineering; 2. explain the principles of manufacturing and mechanical metallurgy and how they can be applied to engineering failure analysis; 3. give appropriate tests that can be done to analyse the cause; and 4. explain what steps can be taken to prevent a particular failure in future.

Application of the principles of manufacturing and mechanical metallurgy to the analysis of failed components; destructive tests (hardness test, compressive test, tensile test, fatigue test, impact test, creep test) and non-destructive test (such as magnetic, resonance, eddy current effect) of metallic materials; analytical techniques such as optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), and high-resolution photography for characterisation of microstructure and fractographic failures; appropriate methods to gather data, analyse the data and draw valid conclusions therefrom.