Engineering Fault / Failure Analysis

C&S has been providing analysis of failures of systems and devices since 1989, specializing in testing of failure modes and recreating failures of devices for personal injury litigation.  Recreation of personal injury scenarios to determine if the source of the fault was equipment, process, or usage.  Tests have been conducted on equipment ranging from gasoline cans to industrial equipment to restaurant equipment. All testing is fully documented and based on engineering best practices.

Contact us about your needs and see how we can help you.

The following are a few examples of investigations

  • Train engineer seat dead switch sensor failure.
  • Restaurant Hot Kettle tip / scald accident.
  • Industrial overhead hoist failure (fatality accident)
  • Gasoline can in car passenger compartment explosion.
  • Five gallon gasoline can flame travel tests.
  • House propane explosion in new construction.

Insurance evaluations

As insurance companies work to keep their liabilities as low as possible, C&S can provide evaluation and analysis of hardware involved in claims to determine if the failed component actually failed as claimed. One common condition these days are appliances damaged by lightning. In particular well pumps are frequently turned in as lightning damage, regardless of how or why they failed. C&S can conduct a quick evaluation to determine if the pump did fail, likely failed or didn’t likely fail due to a lightning strike. If the adjuster has any doubt, we can settle the question quickly. Over the years C&S has evaluated dozens of submersible well pumps, some of which were quickly determined to have failed to do non-lightning related issues.