Failure Analysis of Radioactively Contaminated Components
with Alejandro Mejia, MEng, PE, PEng, Senior Materials Engineer at Imperia Engineering Partners, Milford, MA, USA
ASM Speaker Series In-person Event
Nov. 9th 2023 (6:30pm EST) – Holiday Inn 590 Argus Rd, Oakville, ON L6J 3J3 (near Oakville GO station)
Failure analysis is an essential practice, whether undertaken to improve a process, procedure, or device, or for litigation (as encountered in forensic engineering). In working to understand the fundamental cause(s) of a failure, extensive direct observation and analysis is typically required to identify, isolate, and examine features of interest. This work can be troublesome in cases where the device or component examined is radioactively contaminated.
In known previous cases, improper control of radioactive contamination during failure analysis work has resulted in exposure of persons to doses higher than those “As Low as Reasonably Achievable” (ALARA). This undesirable outcome emphasizes the necessity of understanding the risks, concepts and procedures required to perform failure analysis of radioactively contaminated components safely and effectively.
In this talk, I will discuss the concepts and procedures required to perform failure analysis of radioactively contaminated components. Following this discussion, I will present several case studies involving the assessment of radioactively contaminated materials. While the mechanisms of such failures may (or may not) be familiar to those familiar with analyzing uncontaminated materials, the presented cases will show that extreme environments can result in failures exhibiting unique morphologies and features.
Want to learn more? Register below to join us on November 9th with Alejandro Mejia!
About The Speaker
Alejandro Mejia, MEng, PE, PEng
Mr. Alejandro Mejia is a Senior Materials Engineer at the Materials Engineering Laboratory of Imperia Engineering Partners located in Milford, Massachusetts. Mr. Mejia is a member of a specialized team at Imperia that performs material failure analyses, root cause analyses, condition assessments, consulting, and other analyses in support of customers in areas including Industrial/Institutional, Nuclear Power, Oil & Gas, Power Generation, Power Delivery and Renewable services.
Mr. Mejia is also a trained Radiation Worker and is undertaking training as a Radiation Safety Officer. Imperia’s Materials Engineering Laboratory possesses a license to receive and handle radioactive material. This license allows the Materials Engineering Laboratory to perform its analytical services on radioactively contaminated samples, often without requiring prior decontamination. Omitting radioactive decontamination preserves critical forensic evidence that might be removed by the decontamination process.
Prior to joining Imperia, Mr. Mejia worked in the Toronto area as a forensic engineer for nearly 10 years and completed over 700 investigations of failures of consumer products, manufacturing and industrial equipment, generator engines, cranes, wind and hydroelectric turbines, and fire protection systems. He has considerable experience in the failure analysis of polymers, metals, and ceramics. Mr. Mejia has also been interviewed as a subject matter expert on concepts and theories of materials and mechanical engineering, and he has appeared on multiple seasons of television programs aired worldwide.
Mr. Mejia holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Materials Science and Engineering and a Master of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering – both from the University of Toronto. He has performed research pertaining to the properties and performance of high thermal conductivity alloys for hot stamping applications, and regarding the failure characteristics of nanocomposite materials and metallic materials including high entropy alloys.