Company Experience - Case Studies
Metallurgical Engineering Case Studies
Catastrophic Failure of A Buried Water Pipeline: One of the primary water transmission pipelines for a large Metro Atlanta water system failed catastrophically after more than twenty years in service. The failure was discovered when surface water was seen in... [more]
Cracking Heat Exchanger Tubing : A commercial heat exchanger system suffered a catastrophic failure shortly after returning to service after a dormant period of several years. Engineers from MME identified the heat exchanger failure mechanism as cracking... [more]
Water Heater Failure Investigation: A commercial water heater failed in service in a high-rise office building. The resulting water leak led to widespread electrical and mechanical failures to the building‘s elevator system. Allegations of faulty installation of the water heater... [more]
Truck Rollover and Multi-Vehicle Collision: A coal hauling tractor-trailer rolled over while negotiating a relatively benign turn, initiating a severe multi-vehicle incident with loss of life. In the ensuing litigation, accident reconstructionists for other parties argued that... [more]
Train Derailment Investigation: MME was engaged to perform failure analysis pertaining to a train derailment that was initiated by a fatigue fracture of a single car axle after preliminary investigation by several parties failed to reveal a singular root cause. MME undertook... [more]
Boiler Failure Investigation: A large fire-tube boiler failed catastrophically after less than two years in service. Prior to the failure, sever vibrations due to combustion instabilities were observed by the operators. A multidisciplinary team of MME engineers and technicians... [more]
Product Defect Investigation: The manufacturer of a complex marine heat exchanger was sued by a customer that had experienced widespread failures of the components in their system. The complaint claimed defective design, manufacturing, and inspection. MME was retained to... [more]