Everything Material in Material Science

Watch this “Famous Failures” webinar to learn key considerations for selecting materials to be used in cryogenic temperatures. Douglas Wells, a structural materials engineer from NASA and Dave Kovarik, an NSL failure analyst presented various examples of use by NASA in ground test and flight systems. They also discussed variations in strength, toughness, and fatigue…

The Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in Dauphin County, PA partially melted down on March 28, 1979. It was the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history and was a significant turning point in the global development of nuclear power. Watch this “Famous Failures” webinar from NSL to learn about the accident and how investigators used…

Hydrogen embrittlement can cause a part to fail under stresses well below the expected material strength. Plus, the phenomenon is virtually undetectable using current NDE techniques. In this “Famous Failures” webinar, NSL metallurgists Rebecca Stawovy and Ben Schmidt explore a Bell 222U Helicopter failure that occurred due to hydrogen embrittlement. They discuss which conditions can…

Fatigue has always been a major issue in designing for transportation, particularly airplanes. This webinar presented three airplane failures from NTSB and British Ministry reports that were the result of fatigue: the DeHavilland Comets in 1954, Aloha 243 in 1988, and Southwest 1380 in 2018. It also included a brief discussion of fatigue and a…

In this second installation of our Famous Failures webinar series, attendees learned about the role of heat in the failure of the steel in the World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001. This webinar featured Dave Kovarik, NSL Metallurgist and Failure Analyst, George Vander Voort, president of Vander Voort Consulting with 29 years of…

Stress corrosion cracking is a progressive cracking mechanism that can often lead to catastrophic failure. There have been several notable failures due to this phenomenon, such as the collapse of the Silver Bridge in December of 1967. Learn about this failure in the first webinar of our “Famous Failures” series, as well as the metallurgy…