INVESTIGATION OF ENGINE VALVE FAILURE

Taylor Marine were instructed by maintenance and repair specialists to examine a number of engine valves which had suffered failure in-service in order to determine the root-cause. Our Forensic Engineer performed metallurgical analysis using a variety of analytical laboratory techniques and was able to determine that the valves had suffered failure from an erosion-corrosion mechanism, due to high levels of Vanadium, Sulphur and Sodium which had originated from off-spec fuel.