Institute of Space Technology (IST), following its vision of establishing state of the art Centers of Excellence which would chart a path across all the academic departments/programs of our institute, established Failure Analysis Center (FAC) in March 2013, which has now been upgraded to a national level facility “National Center for Failure Analysis (NCFA)”.  NCFA will not only provide a place for research to all the faculty and PhD/MS scholars, but will also be a resource for providing solutions of materials related services to local industry and various defense and strategic organizations. This initiative is expected to fill a large void, as services being offered at NCFA are currently not available in the country under a single umbrella. It would support a variety of industries by conducting Material Analysis (MA), Failure Analysis (FA), Structural Integrity Assessment (SIA) and providing Material & Process Advisory Services (MPAS). The facility, while still in its infancy, has already commenced to provide consultancy in the following areas:

• Failure Analysis of metal parts/components/systems by applying “Root Cause Approach” with the aim to ensure avoidance of similar recurrences.
• Provision of advisory, services or both to the desirous manufactures for:
  • Identifying/selecting metals & processes (including alternative solutions) essentially required for developing parts/components either afresh or through reverse engineering.
  • Inspection of raw materials, on site processing of materials (including heat & surface treatments) and the finished items.
• Estimation of the status of parts/components/systems with view to:
  • Recommend necessary measures for their restoration (if required & possible).
  • Determine the remaining “safe life period”, for their operational usage.
  • Establish inspection criterion & intervals for parts/components/systems during their “safe life period”.
• Training of Human Resource:
  • Through formal programs at IST.
  • On-site training on need basis.

In order to provide above stated services/advisory, NCFA has opted to follow modern trends being practiced worldwide in relevant fields/domains. This approach entails:

• Only essentially required “state-of- the- art” facilities be established in house.
• A strong pragmatic collaborative network comprising those organizations which already have some authenticated facilities be formed for gaining benefits of their expertise in specific areas and lowering the operational costs.
• A vibrant advisory board of domain experts (regardless of their geographical locations) be formed for sharing & exchanging experiences
• Organizations must remain connected & engaged with international community of practitioners & regulators of the domain, for remaining abreast with technological & conceptual developments 

NCFA plans to enhance the scope of its advisory/services gradually in a phased manner.