Our Services

Periodic Metallurgies is a full-service laboratory with a wide range of available testing services. Our extensive capabilities allow us to provide timely, accurate results to our customers from the earliest stages of product development to aftermarket repair and replacement. Major aerospace primes, regional and national power utilities, and global industrial leaders all rely on Periodic Metallurgies to provide them with testing support for physical, chemical, metallurgical, design, and overhaul data.  For over 35 years we have worked closely with our customers to ensure the validity of their components and systems.

Aviation Services

Periodic Metallurgies performs a number of services specifically for the aircraft maintenance and overhaul industry on both engine and structural components.

Many of these services include:

• Failure Analysis
• Material & Process Identification
• Repair Development & Substantiation
• Warranty Investigation
• PMA (Test and Computation or Identicality Verification)

Documented failure investigation is crucial when assigning liability, negotiating warranty claims, evaluating maintenance schedules and implementing design changes. Periodic Metallurgies retains a staff of skilled personnel who specialize in investigating aircraft engine and component failures. Using modern equipment, including scanning electron microscopy, x-ray analysis, and advanced metallurgical techniques, failure modes and the root causes of failure can be determined and documented.

The development of components requires extensive metallurgical support in both identification of materials and processes (reverse engineering) and verifying the identical duplication of completed components. Periodic Metallurgies has extensive experience in testing and evaluating repair processes performed on engine and structural components. Repair evaluation on turbine engine parts including airfoils, shafts, disks, seals, stators, shrouds, combustors, compressors, nozzles, bearings, housings, gears, and fasteners is routinely performed at Periodic Metallurgies. Processes evaluated include welding, brazing, coating, HIPping, heat treatment, forging, casting, cleaning, etc.

Validation by test and computation often requires complete and extensive data packages proving metallurgical performance. Periodic Metallurgies can assist your company with either substantiation requirement by providing comprehensive metallurgical analysis.

Chemical Analysis

Chemical Analysis of metal alloys and solutions is performed by our qualified chemists using state-of-the-art equipment. Instrumental analysis can be accomplished by vacuum optical emission spectroscopy (OES), inductively-coupled plasma (ICP), and by LECO combustion or inert-gas fusion. We can also use classical wet methods for quantitative chemical analysis on a wide variety of metal alloys.

Failure Analysis

Periodic Metallurgies provides comprehensive failure investigation utilizing a wide variety of metallurgical testing services to help you understand why and how components and systems fail. Our staff has over 35 years of experience identifying and quantifying the root cause of failure for the aerospace, power generation, transportation, and construction industries. Periodic Metallurgies’s services range from simple material or design evaluation to extensive analysis for liability purposes.

Our investigations typically focus on parameters such as system and component design, operating conditions, service history, age, usage patterns, and various other factors that often contribute to part failure. Periodic Metallurgies’s experts can provide in-depth written reports detailing our findings.

We also provide metallurgical consultation and expert witness testimony for court cases involving litigation, insurance issues, warranty issues, forensic investigations and failure analysis. Our expert metallurgist is backed by our full service, accredited laboratory to ensure accurate, thorough results.

Mechanical Testing

Periodic Metallurgies’s mechanical testing lab is fully equipped for computer-controlled tensile testing, elevated-temperature tensile testing, Charpy (CVN) impact testing, stress-rupture testing, Rockwell and Brinell hardness measurement, proof loading, hydrogen embrittlement, bend, shear, compression, and deflection testing.

Our mechanical testing is supported by an in-house machine shop capable of preparing precision test specimens from a wide variety of materials.  We offer traditional sectioning methods alongside EDM sectioning, as well as low-stress grinding and highly accurate milling and lathe turning.

Metallurgy

Periodic Metallurgies has extensive capability with metallurgical equipment, and in-depth experience in metallurgical analysis including metallography, microhardness testing, digital imaging, automated sample preparation, and scanning electron microscopy. Tests for microstructural analysis, plating/coating thickness and quality, grain size, case depth, inclusion rating, porosity, corrosion, and failure analysis are routinely performed. Our scanning electron microscope (SEM) is utilized for fracture surface examination and high resolution microstructural examination. Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX) is used for chemical identification and analysis of constituents and compounds, and for mapping distribution of elements.

Special Processes

Periodic Metallurgies conducts a number of specialized tests on both metallic and non-metallic materials. Some of the tests are shown below. However, if you have a specific specialized test requirement, contact us and we will be glad to either assist you in acomplishing your testing goals or help you find a source who will meet your specific testing needs.

• Taber Abrasion
• Shelf Life Recertification (non-metallics)
• Coefficient of Friction
• Paint Adhesion
• Stress Corrosion
• Hydrogen Embrittlement
• Solderability
• Susceptibility to Intergranular Attack
• Coating Adhesion
• Shore Hardness (polymers)
• Density/Specific Gravity (polymers)
• Electrical Conductivity
• Thermal Barrier Coating Strength