Finding the causes of failure
Fractography is the study of a material’s fractured and damaged surfaces to give insights into the causes of failure. The Department of Aeronautics at Imperial have researchers experienced in the use and failure analysis of composite materials. Dr Emile Greenhalgh, a Reader in Composite Materials, has worked at Imperial College London since 2003, combining his consultancy work with his research duties, leading large European Union funded research projects and authoring the only book in the field.
As one of the world’s leading experts in composite fractography, Dr Greenhalgh is an experienced consultant to industry in failure analysis. His sixteen years’ experience working at QinetiQ in composite materials research and testing prior to joining Imperial means that he’s experienced in understanding industry’s needs and delivering professional solutions.
His projects tend to involve evaluating material specimens supplied by the client, testing them to identify differences in properties and find out, for example, why one material is under-performing compared to the other. He has many contacts in industry, having worked for many years at analysing the causes of materials failure in F1 crashes and air accidents.
Dr Greenhalgh’s expertise, combined with the state-of-the-art testing facilities within the Department of Aeronautics means that clients receive a comprehensive fractographic service through Imperial Consultants. In addition, the department has researchers working on cutting-edge computational and numerical models and their consultancy projects often make use of the breadth of knowledge available.
Dr Greenhalgh says of his projects “It ensures my research is applied and relevant to industry problems. Most industry needs are short-term, but as your relationship with a company builds, opportunities for long-term research programmes begin to show themselves.”
By involving the department’s PhD students and post-docs in the testing, they are exposed to real-life problems as well as benefiting financially and developing knowledge and skills relevant to industry.
“In failure analysis, the important thing is to make sure you’re covered with professional indemnity insurance – analysing the cause of an in-service failure has legal implications.” he adds. “Working through Imperial Consultants gives me that cover and means I can hand over all the admin side to them too.”
For more information on our fractography or failure analysis consulting services, please contact us.
