INDUSTRIAL FAILURE ANALYSIS

SAMAC engineers offer a diversified teamwork approach to analyze industrial/oilfield failures, boiler and machinery losses, plant operations and maintenance issues. We provide the answers to determine the root cause of an incident, the sequence of events, the rebuild costs and even the design required for replacement equipment.

The fundamental cause of a failure may include design deficiencies, improper manufacturing, material imperfections, errors in assembly or repair, inadequate inspection or quality control, inadequate maintenance, improper service conditions or unforeseen changes in service. Only when all the issues are assessed is it possible to conclude why a component failed and if the failure may have been preventable. Failure investigations can be conducted for a single client or as a joint study for several parties with SAMAC providing an independent engineering assessment.

Over the last 15 years, our experience has included:

• Boiler and machinery failures
• Oilfield production and process equipment failures
• Commercial and residential equipment failures
• Industrial mobile equipment (including commercial tractor-trailer units, mining, agricultural and other off-road equipment)

Examples of mechanical and metallurgical failures investigated by SAMAC engineers include:

• $100M gas plant loss due to mechanical failure
• $20M manufacturing plant loss due to process upset
• Diesel and gas engine failures
• Fires on mining trucks 
• Failure of gas fired heater tubes
• Sour gas well blowout due to wellhead failure
• Control systems failure on off-shore drilling rig
• Oil and gas production facility explosion due to overpressure
• High pressure flexible piping failure leading to explosion and fire