Metallography Webinar

The art and science of metallography is a crucial source of valuable information in the failure analysis process and can be applied to metals (metallography) and materials (materiallography) alike.

Metallography is often thought of as a simple QC procedure used to examine the grains of metal using optical microscopes; however, this technique, if applied correctly, can provide invaluable information when reviewed with a variety of optical techniques including optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, EBSD, TEM and XRD. For this webinar we will be limiting our discussion to metallography and optical microscopy.

The metallographic preparation process can be difficult and interpreting the resulting data complex. We will briefly discuss the metallographic preparation process and some of the many metal/materials characteristics that can be revealed through this process. The successful interpretation of the images produced by metallography are sometimes indispensable tools in the metallurgists toolbox.

Some examples presented include:

Defect characterization

Examples of the use of microstructures and grain structure as a QC tool in a variety of product forms including welding, casting and joining.

Metallography as a forensic tool in fire investigations and accident investigations.

Fracture mechanism confirmation

Metallography as an art form