Metallurgy

Professionals at GT ENGINEERING bring a depth of experience to addressing issues of metallurgical degradation. We routinely consult for both manufacturing and processing industries. Often our role is to provide quality control analysis on components or engineered products where a manufacturer is facing unacceptable levels of failures and/or returns. Examples of past projects for manufacturers include:

• Source of cracking in a venturi used in measurement of fuel flow in an aviation application.
• Identification of corrosive contamination of circuit boards.
• Cause of weld failures in continuous-link conveyors used in food processing.
• The metallurgical bases for electric power tower support cracking.

In support of petrochemical processing industries we have addressed a wide range of plant corrosion and wear problems as diverse as:

• Bearing failures in a hydrogen compressor.
• Steam turbine wheel fracture.
• Excessive corrosion in processing vessels, heat exchangers and piping.

Power plant projects have included:

• Failure analyses of fired boiler tube ruptures.
• Serviceability issues with diesel back-up generators.
• Generator bearing degradation.
• Power conductor line breakage.
• Cooling fin failure in hydroelectric generators.
• Power tower collapse.
• Extensive work in the area of heat exchangers and steam generators.

Metallurgical projects have included:

• Cause and origin analyses of failures in wire ropes.
• Ruptures and/or explosions of pressure vessels, valves and fuel containers.
• Injury causing fractures of hand tools such as hammers and chisels.
• Losses involving corrosion of copper tubing, brass fittings, and cast iron piping.
• Failures in consumer products (chairs, washing machines, furnaces/heating systems, etc).

We have had extensive involvement with maritime failures such as:

• Fracture of propeller shafts.
• Engine failures.
• Boom/davit/crane accidents.

Extensive industrial loss investigations encompass:

• Food storage and processing industry (ammonia leaks, failures in industrial chillers, corrosion of processing and transport systems, fire protection system failures, irrigation system related losses).
• Transportation industries (derailment, trucking/towing accidents, wheel loss, failures in dock cranes and conveyor systems).
• Storage tank degradation.

One of our principals has served as a consultant to Argonne National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the area of nuclear power steam generators.

GT ENGINEERING retains in-house metallurgical laboratory capabilities for preservation, processing and examination of metallurgical samples.

For specific questions regarding metallurgic services at GT ENGINEERING, please contact Dr. Robert Clark: rclark@gt-engineering.com.