The Interdisciplinary Nature of Failure Analysis

Determining the root cause or causes of mechanical failures is a task that is often complex and requires the expertise of many engineering disciplines, such as materials, mechanics, thermal and fluid mechanics engineering. Other disciplines, such as biology, human factors and statistics, must also be included in some cases. Failure analysis is often a task performed by a team made of members from various disciplines, however one of the most important factors in determining the root cause of a failure is to identify the key disciplines. The team make-up may also change during the investigations as new avenues are explored. The leader of a failure analysis investigation must therefore constantly ensure that the right expertise is being applied to the problem, that all the evidence and theories for failure are evaluated by technically qualified individuals, and that the analysis moves from the various specialties back to the "big picture." In short, failures don't come with labels indicating what kinds of engineers should work on them, or the apparent "labels" may be misleading. Several case histories, from failures large and small, will illustrate this point.