The objective of a Failure Analysis is to find the primary cause of a failure, in this way corrective actions could be developed and properly applied. Frequently a combination of different methods and techniques shall be applied to find the cause of a failure.

Lack of Fusion

In the image a very small lack of fusion could be detected in an AISI 316L steel pipe welded joint. The size of the lack of fusion is in the limit of NDT detection capability. The sample was prepared and observed with SEM which is a fundamental tool in the failure analysis.