Root Cause Failure Analysis

How does TCR approach a failure investigation?

The work is accepted across oil and gas, refining, petrochemicals, fertilisers, power, general engineering, defence, aviation, and insurance, and it covers both static and rotating equipment.

The findings are written to stand up where it matters: not only for the plant’s own reliability decisions but for litigation and insurance investigations, which is why the method is evidence-led and the report is defensible. The forensic approach is to read the available physical evidence, run the tests that the case requires, and build the most probable failure scenario from what the evidence supports, then to set it out in plain terms so that engineers, executives, regulators, or counsel can all follow the reasoning.

The practice draws on more than 9,000 failure investigations, covering manufacturing and metallurgical failures in ASME boilers, pressure vessels, gas turbine engine components, oil and gas transmission pipelines, food processing equipment, heat exchangers, medical supplies, refineries, petrochemical plants, aircraft/aerospace, offshore structures, industrial machinery, weldments and ships.

The team’s particular strength is high-temperature and high-pressure failures. Its experience spans materials, failure analysis, metallurgy, welding, quality assurance and forensic engineering. The analysis is conducted by engineers holding advanced degrees in metallurgy, mechanical, civil, chemical, and electrical engineering.

TCR Engineering agrees an investigation plan with the client first. The background of the failure and its general features are studied carefully before any testing begins. The cause is then established by analytical and mechanical procedures that often include simulated service testing, and the combined analysis and testing locate the problem and support the recommendations.

In the course of the various steps listed below, preliminary conclusions are often formulated. If the probable fundamental cause of the metallurgical failure becomes evident early on in the examination, the rest of the investigation focuses on confirming the probable cause and eliminating other possibilities. The metallurgical failure analyst compiles the results of preliminary conclusions, carefully considers all aspects of failure including visual examination of a fracture surface, the inspection of a single metallographic specimen and the history of similar failures.

A failure investigation establishes where the failure started, the damage mechanism that grew it, referenced to API RP 571, the service, material and design conditions that contributed, and the corrective actions that prevent a repeat. Non-destructive examination always comes before destructive sectioning, so the evidence survives for any later review.

What the failure investigation report contains

The investigation team produces detailed written reports to ensure clients fully understand the implications and can independently examine the conclusions:

• Description of the Failed Component
• Service Condition at the Time of Failure
• Prior Service History
• Manufacturing and Processing History of Component
• Mechanical and Metallurgical Study of Failure
• Metallurgical Evaluation of Quality
• Summary of Failure Causing Mechanism
• Recommendations for Prevention of Similar Failures
• Latest Inspection Solutions

Workflow: visual, NDT, replication, hardness, mechanical and chemical, fractography (SEM and EDS), microstructural analysis, FEA where loading is in question, damage-mechanism attribution, and a written report fit for litigation, insurance, or operator action.

Standards. API RP 571 (damage mechanisms in the refining industry), ASM Handbook Volume 11A, WRC 488, WRC 489, and WRC 490.

Representative engagement. HMEL Bathinda failure-investigation rate contract, a three-year retainer covering the full Bathinda refinery and petrochemical complex (June 2025 to June 2028).

Non-Metallic Component Failure Analysis

The practice also covers non-metallic components: polymers, composites, ceramics, rubber, and FRP and GRP systems, which typically degrade through ultraviolet exposure, chemical attack, thermal ageing, or design error. These are investigated through a combination of mechanical testing, spectroscopy, microscopy, and thermal analysis, with the same root-cause discipline applied to the metallic work.

• Materials: polymers, composites, ceramics, rubber, and FRP and GRP systems.
• Typical degradation: ultraviolet exposure, chemical attack, thermal ageing, or design error.
• Methods: mechanical testing, spectroscopy, microscopy and thermal analysis.
• Discipline: the same root-cause method applied to the metallic work.

The Investigation Bench: Nine Stages, Four SEMs

The group's dedicated failure investigation bench is TCR Advanced Engineering at Makarpura, Vadodara. Every investigation opens with a core team of senior specialists who fix the approach and the order of testing before anything is cut, so the evidence is read before sectioning destroys it, and the Technical Authority signs every final report.

Scanning electron microscopy is the instrument a failure investigation queues for, because fractography, inclusion and deposit analysis and corrosion-product chemistry all need it. The Vadodara bench runs four SEMs in-house, so no time-critical fracture surface waits on an outside facility.

• Technical Authority: Paresh Haribhakti, Managing Director and Chief Metallurgist of TCR Advanced, co-author of the ASM International book on boiler tube failure investigation and contributor to ASM Handbook Volume 11A.
• Head of the failure investigation line: Ketan Upadhyaya, Reliability Engineering, 35 years in NDE, acoustic emission, SEM and failure investigation.
• Investigation Lead: Pooja Mehta, Senior Manager, Failure Investigation, who has led more than 4,000 failure investigations.
• SEM and EDS: Prof. M.N. Patel, former Associate Professor of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, MS University of Baroda, 40 years in electron microscopy and failure analysis, reviews every fractographic and EDS finding.
• The report states the component history, sampling and specimen locations, each test with its method and, where relevant, its measurement uncertainty, annotated images, the damage mechanism referenced to API RP 571, the root cause and the corrective actions. Retained samples and fracture surfaces are kept for three months after the report.
• The full organisation, the laboratory register and the accreditations of the Vadodara bench are on the TCR Advanced page.

Which laboratory in India can investigate a metallurgical failure?

TCR Engineering Services Pvt. Ltd. investigates metallurgical failures from its laboratory at Mahape, Navi Mumbai, accredited to NABL ISO/IEC 17025:2017 under certificate NABLT0726MH18640, with the group's dedicated investigation bench at TCR Advanced, Vadodara. The record behind it is 9,000+ documented failure investigations for plants in India and the GCC.

• Check the scope yourself: 1,483 NABL scope items, valid 3 March 2026 to 2 March 2030, listed line by line on Quality, Accreditations and Approvals.
• Tests behind a finding: metallurgical evaluation, chemical analysis and mechanical testing, each reported with its method.
• Boiler and heater tubes: 1,500+ of the investigations, with their own page on boiler tube failure analysis.
• Reports used abroad: NABL is an ILAC MRA signatory, so accredited test reports are accepted in 90+ economies.

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• Power Generation
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