In the event of a breakdown, breakage or malfunction, damage analysis helps to identify the source of the damage and secure your equipment. The FILAB laboratory puts its expertise in materials and chemical analysis at the service of your investigation needs on metal, plastic, composite or electronic parts.
As an industrial you want to analyse damage to a part or material
What is part or material damage?
a manufacturing defect,
excessive or inappropriate stress,
mechanical or thermal shock,
corrosion or premature ageing,
or faulty assembly or maintenance.
Visible or measurable signs of damage
The signs of damage vary according to the nature of the part and the type of stress. They may be :
- Clear or progressive cracks or breaks
- Abnormal plastic or elastic deformation
- Premature wear (abrasion, erosion, friction)
- Traces of corrosion, oxidation or pitting
- Change in appearance (colour, shine, roughness)
- Seizure or mechanical blockage
- Presence of surface residues or deposits
- Loss of adhesion or cohesion (delamination, disassembly)
These visual or analytical clues are all entry points for an in-depth laboratory examination to understand the origin of the problem and prevent any recurrence.
What is the purpose of damage analysis?
Damage analysis makes it possible to understand the mechanisms of deterioration, to qualify the nature of the damage (crack, break, abrasion, contamination, deformation, etc.) and to validate or question a material, a treatment or a manufacturing process.
Damage analysis provides invaluable technical support to your quality, maintenance, production, R&D or purchasing departments, providing factual information to guide your decisions.
The FILAB laboratory uses the expertise of its teams to analyse the nature and origin of the damage
With its dual expertise in chemistry and materials, the FILAB laboratory offers you failure assessment or damage analysis services to accurately assess the potential cause(s) of your production faults.
Through tailor-made support and a progressive analytical approach, the FILAB laboratory can assist you with the following services.
Damage analysis: technical expertise at the service of industry
Expertise and analysis of failure or damage to metal parts: corrosion mechanisms, wear and tear and premature ageing phenomena, cracks, breaks, etc.
Characterization of failures or damage and surface treatment defects
Weld control
Study of defects and fracture surfaces on metal parts
Study of morphological failures (porosity, roughness, etc.)
Surface analysis to check the cleanliness of a part
Methodology for analysing damage in the laboratory
Our approach combines several techniques for investigating breakdowns or breakages:.
What types of materials can be analysed?
We carry out damage analysis on a wide range of materials, from electronic components to medical devices.
Metals
Alloys
Plastics
Composites materials
Ceramics
Multi-material assemblies
Electronic components
Medical components
What sectors are covered by damage analysis?
Our services apply to a wide range of industrial sectors:
- Automotive and transport: breakage of parts, seizure, corrosion of connectors, etc.
- Aeronautics and space: cracks in alloys, oxidation of components, etc.
- Energy and nuclear: damage to pumps, seals, hydraulic circuits, etc.
- Medical devices: deformation of implants, brittleness of engineering plastics, etc.
- Cosmetics, luxury goods, food industry: alteration of packaging, particle pollution, etc.
Our technical resources for damage surveys
FAQ
Visual examination, microscopic observations (SEM, optical), chemical analyses (FTIR, XPS, ICP, etc.) and mechanical tests (hardness, tensile strength, resilience) are used to precisely characterise the damage observed. These techniques are combined to provide a reliable and usable diagnosis.
Damage analysis focuses on the study of visible physical deterioration. It complements failure analysis, which explores more broadly the loss of functional performance, whether of hardware, software or system origin. By combining the two approaches, FILAB offers comprehensive expertise to make your products and processes more reliable.
Sudden or progressive fractures due to mechanical fatigue, stress corrosion, shearing or point overloading are the most frequent cases. The analysis identifies the fracture mechanisms (brittle, ductile, transgranular, intergranular, etc.) based on fractographic and metallographic observations.
Internal contaminants or surface residues can cause local embrittlement, poor adhesion or galvanic corrosion. They are detected by techniques such as SEM-EDS, infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), or surface microanalysis (XPS, ToF-SIMS).
A part showing buckling, localised plastic deformation or asymmetrical shrinkage may reveal a heat treatment problem, a poor choice of material, or a stress outside the specification. The analysis enables the altered geometry to be correlated with the mechanical properties measured (hardness, tensile strength, resilience).
Yes, internal defects such as blowholes, shrinkage, hardening or weld cracks, often invisible to the naked eye, can be revealed by metallographic sections, optical/MEB imaging or cross-sectional analysis. These defects can locally affect mechanical strength or corrosion resistance.
