Failure analysis for turbine blades. lithium batteries. sinkholes. pipeline ruptures. corrosion damage. semiconductors. bearings. composite delamination.

It puts the knowledge of why things fail in one place, and makes the first hour of it free. Describe a failure and the research concierge will help you understand what the likely mechanisms are, which engineering disciplines investigate them, what evidence matters and what is at risk of being lost. Where a matter needs a retained expert, the Institute finds the right one.

No. Nothing here, including concierge conversations, is an opinion on cause, defect or liability. Naming the mechanisms consistent with a description is not the same as concluding which one occurred — that requires examination of the actual evidence by a qualified engineer, and it is the difference between orientation and an opinion.

The research assistance is free and stays free. When a matter requires a retained expert — for an examination, an advisory engagement or testimony — the Institute arranges the engagement through its expert network and is compensated for that work. That is the entire business model, and we publish it because visitors who cross-examine people for a living should not have to guess.

Enormously, and it is the most urgent thing on this page. Physical evidence is perishable in a way documents are not: fracture surfaces corrode, components get cleaned, scenes are cleared and equipment is repaired or scrapped in the ordinary course. Once altered, the analysis that would have been possible is often simply gone. If anything is scheduled to be moved, repaired or discarded, raise it immediately.

Rarely, on the Institute’s own research. A structural analysis of the hundred worst engineering failures of the modern era found that in 99 of 100, the knowledge needed to prevent the disaster already existed before it happened; in 67, the fatal mechanism had been described in writing beforehand and overruled. One was genuinely beyond the knowledge of its time. The recurring failure is not of engineering knowledge but of assembling it.

Both, matter by matter. The Institute serves plaintiff and defense counsel, insurers and insureds, manufacturers and owners. Physics does not change according to who asked, and an institution that only ever reached conclusions convenient to one side would not be worth consulting from either.