Consulting Service

Materials Failure Analysis & Expert Witness Services

A failed component is a message from the material. I read it — fracture surface, microstructure, loading history — and where the case demands it, build the simulation that proves the mechanism. For plant engineers, insurers, and legal teams.

Who this is for

The plant engineer with a fractured shaft and a production line down, who needs the cause established before the replacement fails the same way. The insurance or legal team that needs an independent technical opinion, reasoned from the physical evidence and documented so that every conclusion can be traced back to something observable. The design team whose component keeps failing in the field despite passing every qualification test.

A failure is a message from the material. The job is reading it correctly — because the wrong root cause means the fix does not work and the failure returns.

What an investigation covers

Fractography & failure-mode classification Reading the fracture surface: fatigue striations, dimples, cleavage, beach marks — the evidence that separates overload from fatigue from environment-assisted cracking.
Microstructural forensics SEM and EBSD examination of the material's actual state versus its certificate: phases, grain structure, inclusions, prior damage.
Mechanical context reconstruction Loads, cycles, temperatures, and stress concentrations rebuilt from service records and geometry — the conditions the material actually saw.
Simulation-backed root cause FEM and crystal plasticity models that test the proposed mechanism quantitatively: does it reproduce the failure where and how it occurred?
Written technical opinions Opinions structured for legal and insurance contexts: the evidence chain set out explicitly, observation separated from inference, and the limits of what the evidence supports stated rather than glossed over.
Redesign guidance The engineering consequence: what to change in material, processing, or geometry so the failure does not repeat.

Expert witness and litigation support

When a component failure becomes a dispute, the technical question and the legal question stop being the same thing. A root-cause report written for a plant engineer will not survive cross-examination. An expert report has to make the evidence chain explicit, separate observation from inference, and state plainly where the evidence stops short of certainty.

What a legal or insurance team gets from me:

Independent technical opinion An assessment of the failure mechanism reached from the evidence, not from the instructing party's preferred conclusion. If the evidence does not support your case, you hear that at the first call, not in the report.
Reports built for challenge Every conclusion traced to a specific observation: fracture surface feature, micrograph, hardness result, or simulation output. Assumptions listed openly, with their effect on the conclusion stated.
Review of an opposing expert's report Where a report has already been produced, an assessment of whether its mechanism is consistent with the physical evidence and whether its methods support the weight placed on them.
Explaining mechanics to non-specialists Fatigue, creep, hydrogen embrittlement, and stress-corrosion cracking explained so a judge, adjuster, or arbitrator can follow the reasoning without the analysis being diluted.

The distinction that matters in these cases is between a plausible explanation and a defensible one. A plausible explanation fits the fracture surface. A defensible one also reproduces the failure quantitatively, at the location and under the loading the service history supports. Simulation is what closes that gap, and it is the part most failure reports leave out.

Where my experience actually sits, stated plainly. My background in failure analysis is technical and academic: a decade of experimental and numerical research on how metals deform, crack, and fail, published work on damage and fatigue, and failure-analysis workshops and case studies I have taught and worked through. I have not yet been instructed on a live case or given evidence in court.

If you need an expert with a track record of courtroom testimony, I am not that person yet, and you should retain someone who is. If what your case needs is the technical analysis done properly, by someone who will tell you honestly what the evidence does and does not support, that is work I can do now. Ask me on the first call and I will give you a straight answer about whether I am the right fit.

Why me

10+ yrsexperimental + numerical failure research
39+publications incl. damage & fatigue studies
Dr.-Ing.TU Bergakademie Freiberg, magna cum laude
2scales covered: component FEM & grain-level CP

My research career is built on how metals deform and fail: thermo-mechanical fatigue and crack propagation in ABAQUS, damage evolution in multi-phase steels with crystal plasticity, and in-situ testing where we watched damage initiate at particle interfaces in real time. That combination matters for failure work — I can read the fracture surface and build the model that proves the mechanism, which is the difference between a plausible explanation and a defensible one.

As a process engineer at TSMC, I needed a very specific understanding of how microstructural mechanisms connect to real-world material behavior. Dr. Qayyum bridged that gap between academic rigor and engineering practice in a way I hadn’t found anywhere else. — Shao-Shen Tseng, Design Engineer, TSMC, Taiwan

How it works

  1. 15-minute call. You describe the failure, what evidence exists, and what the answer is for — production, insurance, litigation. I tell you what level of investigation the case actually needs.
  2. Scoped investigation. Document review (1–2 weeks), physical-evidence investigation (typically 4–8 weeks), or litigation support on the proceedings' timeline — agreed in writing.
  3. Defensible deliverable. A written opinion with the evidence chain intact: observations, mechanism, root cause, and the redesign consequence — structured to survive technical challenge.

Common questions

Can you work from photos and reports, or do you need the part?

A document-based review is the cheapest first step and often narrows the cause substantially. Conclusions that must survive challenge usually need the physical evidence — fractography, sections, hardness maps. The first call establishes which your case needs.

Do you handle legal and insurance work?

Yes, as written technical opinions. The analysis is the same as for an industrial client; the reporting is structured for a non-technical reader, with the evidence chain explicit and the limits of the evidence stated. To be clear about scope: I have not yet been instructed on a live case or appeared as a testifying expert, so if your matter needs someone with a courtroom record, retain that person instead. Ask on the first call and I will tell you honestly which you need.

What materials are in scope?

Metallic components — steels (incl. AHSS and TRIP grades), aluminum alloys, and metal matrix composites are the core. Fracture, fatigue, and wear failures across forming, structural, and rotating applications.

What if the failure cause turns out to be trivial?

Then you find out quickly and cheaply — a document review that concludes "assembly error, not material" in week one is a good outcome, and I will not inflate it into a longer engagement.

Do you do the laboratory work yourself?

Characterisation runs through partner laboratories or your own facilities; I specify the examinations, interpret the results, and own the analysis. Where you have in-house SEM/EBSD capability, I work with your team's output directly.

Start With 15 Minutes

Book a call and describe the failure. I will tell you what level of investigation the case needs — and if the answer is already visible in what you have, I will tell you that too.

Book a 15-Minute Call Send a Message

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