Extras · 1 of 4

A typical day

Morning starts with test results: tensile bars pulled overnight, hardness readings, images from the electron microscope. Then the plant calls because a batch of parts is cracking, so you walk the floor, talk to the operators and take samples. The afternoon is failure analysis: cut, polish, etch, photograph and work out whether the cause was the alloy, the heat treatment or the supplier. You write it up in a report someone will act on, and you spend the last hour on a call with a vendor about whether their next shipment will be any different.