Material Science

FTIR Analysis Proves Manufacturing Defect

03 February 2022

An automotive warehouse had a building less than a year old when most of their LED lights began to fail. Before any investigation took place, the LED light manufacturer attributed the failure to the fumes from the products stored in the warehouse.

Envista’s materials science expert was called in to perform testing of the lights and was able to determine that the failure was occurring in the LED printed circuit boards where the LEDs were mounted.  The boards were then sent to Envista’s Materials Lab for a Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analysis.

The FTIR analysis revealed that there were no foreign chemicals contributing to the failure of the LEDs, and that the failure was a result of overheating from an internal defect. 

Envista’s findings were reported to the client and the manufacturer and in turn, the manufacturer had to replace all defective light fixtures, at no cost to the client, saving them over $300,000.

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About The Author
Matthew Senn
Matthew Senn, PE
Practice Leader
Energy

Mr. Matthew Senn is the Practice Leader for Energy and a licensed Professional Engineer with a strong background in Renewable Energy power generation; specifically, Megawatt-class wind turbine, Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), and solar photovoltaic power plants. He has analyzed failures of renewable energy equipment during construction, operation, and transportation phases of the equipment. He specializes in root cause failure analysis and has evaluated damage and subsequent repairs to the following large renewable energy equipment: generators/motors, wind turbine blades, nacelles, generators, gearboxes, bearings, control panel, inverters/converters, large gauge insulated conductor cables, high-power vacuum tube contactors, generator slip rings with carbon brushes, power factor correction capacitors and ultrasonic anemometers, battery modules, battery management systems, and solar photovoltaic modules.
Additionally, he has performed forensic investigation on fire scenes. He has analyzed failed deep-groove ball bearings installed on generators and motors. He has experience designing installation of motor current monitoring systems, condition monitoring systems, large gauge conductor cable repair and engineered tower power and light systems. He has assisted in the development of electrical safety lock-out/tag-out programs and authored many repair instructions for electrical components. At Envista, he provides forensic analysis of electrical and electromechanical equipment failure and provides leadership to the Energy Practice Group.

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