Polymer Failure Analysis & Fractography

The science of how a part broke — optical and SEM fractography, failure-mode discrimination, and confirmatory testing from a record of 2,000+ investigated failures.

Private cohorts & on-site
Format: 3-day (8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.)
Level: Advanced
Location: Scheduled on demand · on-site at your facility or a regional venue
Date(s): Not yet scheduled for open enrollment. Get notified when it is, or book it privately for your team.
Includes: Certificate of Completion · printed slide binder · take-home reference text

Get notified when this course is scheduled

One email when dates are set. Or skip the wait: run it as a private cohort, on-site at your plant.

Talk to us about a private cohort
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Faculty

Faculty details for this seminar will be announced with the full schedule.

Fees

Early: $1,895 (payment 4+ weeks ahead)
Standard: $2,095 (check/ACH) · $2,165 (card)

Group discount: $200 off per attendee for 3+ from the same organization.

Also Available

  • Corporate on-site delivery at your facility
  • Private cohort sessions
  • Digital curriculum licensing

Seminar Overview

Most plastics investigations stop at 'the part broke.' This session teaches the physical science of HOW it broke — the first step that separates a defensible finding from a guess. Built on the combined case record of two of the most prolific polymer-failure practices in the country (2,000+ investigated failures, hundreds of retained matters), the seminar covers fractography from optical to SEM, failure-mode discrimination, and the forensic tests that confirm a hypothesis. Taught by experts who have defended their findings in deposition and trial, it is the science layer that underlies every other ETS failure course.

Ideal Learner

  • Failure-analysis and materials engineers investigating polymer component failures
  • Metallurgy / materials engineers moving into polymer failure
  • Design and product engineers whose parts fail under load, fatigue, or environment
  • Quality and warranty managers handling field-failure teams
  • Litigation-support and forensic-consulting professionals

Learning Objectives

  • Read fracture surfaces and classify failure mode from physical evidence (ductile/brittle, fatigue, creep, ESC, environmental, contamination)
  • Operate optical and SEM fractography to locate crack initiation and propagation direction
  • Select and execute confirmatory tests (DSC, FTIR, GPC, mechanical) that validate the failure mechanism
  • Distinguish design failure from processing failure from material failure from field abuse
  • Document a fracture analysis to a level that survives laboratory peer review and legal challenge

Consulting Sessions

Seminar attendees can sign up for individual consulting sessions with the instructor. Sessions are free for registered attendees, first-come first-served — sign up when registering by calling 248-539-0473 or during the seminar.

Seminar Outline

  • Failure-mode taxonomy for polymers: overload, fatigue, creep rupture, ESC, thermal, chemical
  • The fracture surface as a record: initiation, origin geometry, propagation, final fast fracture
  • Why polymer fractography differs from metals (craze, shear yielding, fibrillation, crazing)
  • The stereo microscope as the primary tool
  • Beach marks, arrest lines, hackle, parabolas, and their meaning
  • Crack direction and load-state inference from surface topography
  • Sample preparation and conductivity challenges for polymers
  • Initiator identification at magnification
  • EDX for contamination, moisture blooms, and inorganic inclusions
  • Overload vs. fatigue: features that separate them
  • Creep rupture and the role of sustained load and temperature
  • Environmental stress cracking and the pre-crazing signature
  • Brittle-fiber vs. ductile-matrix composite failures
  • Thermal analysis (DSC, TGA): degree of crystallinity, degradation, filler content
  • Spectroscopy (FTIR): oxidation, contamination, additive depletion
  • GPC for molecular-weight loss from processing or aging
  • Mechanical retest of virgin vs. failed material
  • Evidence preservation, custody, and non-destructive-first sequencing
  • Forming and eliminating hypotheses (failure scenario trees)
  • Distinguishing root cause from contributing causes
  • The report and the defense: what holds up, what unravels
  • Attendees run an instrumented fracture analysis on supplied specimens
  • Build the evidence-based failure-mode determination
  • Present the finding and defend it against critique

More in Track A — Polymer Failure & Materials Science

Full Course Catalog