ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | MARCH 2026 26 • Warranty information • Operating and installation instructions If the failed component is a purchased component, the supplier must be included in the investigation and their records reviewed. Suppliers should be made aware of the concern and afforded the opportunity to participate in the investigation. P-6 Photos. It is vitally important to take plenty of photos to document the failures and conditions surrounding the failure. Once the evidence is gone, it is gone forever. When an organization has been notified of a product failure the customer or end user should be instructed to provide photographs of the failure and forward them to the lead investigator. Photos should be properly labeled and provide documentation of the failure event up to and including return of the parts. Photos should be made from a good digital camera equipped with macro lens capability and good close-up resolution. Field photos taken with any equipment other than a high-quality camera should be stored and transmitted for possible inclusion in the final report. Not all photographs will find their way to the final report but retaining them for evidence is vitally important. Fracture surfaces need to be well documented with very high-quality photo- graphs, adding labels of pertinent features. The fracture surface reveals the mode of the failure and is the necessary evidence that is the key to determining the mechanism and the source of the failure. Great care must be taken to ensure the photos are clear and properly document the evidence being recorded. (See sidebar below.) The photos could find their way to a courtroom and poor photographic technique or quality could damage the credibility of the report. An excellent source of photographic and documentation tools for failure investigations is forensic equipment suppliers. (See sidebar on right.) P-7 Paper. All team members should be instructed to take copious notes during their investigation, completion of tasks, and reporting results of their investigation. Memories can fail, which can steer an investigation in an unproductive direction. Detailed notes will help keep the investigation on track. Develop a list of questions prior to interviewing individuals to help pursue facts and evidence. The following contains some of the “paper trail” items that should be reviewed and retained: sketches, checklists, field notes, phone conversation notes, part drawings, part revision documentation, manufacturing op sheets, op sheet revision documentation, maintenance records, warranty information, OEM reports, contact lists, and emails. There are probably more but it is important to retain all records until it is determined without a doubt the information is not applicable. As stated earlier, once the information is gone, it’s gone forever. COLLECTION AND RETENTION OF INVESTIGATION DOCUMENTATION A failure investigation is quite similar to a crime scene investigation. A specific tool utilized by homicide detectives and crime investigators is called a “murder book.” This is a notebook or at times multiple notebooks that contain every single piece of information regarding the crime being investigated. A criminal investigation team would not begin an investigation without creating such a book. Not every failure investigation needs to CRIME SCENE PHOTO EQUIPMENT KIT This is a collection of photographic equipment commonly used in the documentation of crime scene investigations. This type of equipment is an excellent choice for failure investigation documentation. Crime scene investigation equipment suppliers also have many additional useful tools that can be utilized for documenting failure investigations. Typical crime scene photo equipment kit. Courtesy of Crime Scene and Evidence Photography, 2nd Edition, 2014. METALLOGRAPHY LAB SETUP It is important to document the condition of a failed component upon receipt. Metallurgical and fractography labs maintain various photographic setups for this purpose. These include digital cameras, digital microscopy, scanning electron microcopy, optical metallography, computed tomography, and more. A thorough failure analysis study often utilizes more than one approach. A photographic documentation captures the general physical damage and surface condition adjacent to the fracture. Then a higher magnification study provides a detailed view of the microstructural features of the damaged area. Setup for scanning electron microscope examination of an exemplar fractured crankshaft. Courtesy of ASM Handbook, Vol. 11, Failure Analysis and Prevention.
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