On-site Inspection Services

MATCO's investigation team has many years of experience in all aspects of on-site and laboratory inspection, investigation, and assessment. Our diverse group of Ph.D.s, registered professional engineers, and certified technicians can provide all of the expertise you require for your inspection needs. From electrical transmission pole corrosion, to bridges to underground pipeline explosions, to bridge accident assessment, to failure analysis of jet engine components; MATCO has the expertise you require in the inspection and investigative field.

We have performed bridge failure inspection and concrete petrographic studies to determine if the collapse of the bidge was due to aging and corrosion of steel reinforcemnets or degradation of aging concrete. We have been called in, for example, by a major airline when they were faced with emergency inspections of jack screws on DC9 and MD 80 aircrafts. Among our many investigations we have performed:

• construction inspection,
• bridge inspection
• fatigue & corrosion & Defect detection
• pipeline inspection,
• pole and lattice inspection,
• roofing inspection,
• hurricane inspection
• concrete inspection,
• paint inspection,
• cable inspection,
• fuselage and structure components inspection,

and many more. We have even determined whether coffee spilled by pilots into the vents of various electronic modules was the cause of corrosion of printed circuit boards in the cockpits of commercial aircraft!

Failure Analysis of failed strcutures

A failure analysis should provide the answers to the following questions:

a. Which component failed first?

b. What was the mode of failure, How did it fail?

c. What were the trajectories of failed parts and the consequential damage ?

d. The root cause of the failure?

e. What are possible orrective actions ?

On-site investigation and reviewing operating conditions and maintenance records may be essential to determine the most likely sequence of events in a failure.

Our certified team of inspectors can perform non-destructive testing on project sites to evaluate the integrity of large structures. Our team has performed such analyses nation and worldwide, and will travel to your project site at a moments notice for emergency evaluations. Such large structure evaluations have included off-shore oil platforms, wind power generation towers, concrete domes and stadiums, large underground cooling systems, and large elevated water towers. Our projects have taken us from Aloha Stadium in Hawaii to Alyeska Ski Resort in Alaska; from bridges in the Bahamas to titanium structures in Tokyo, Japan.

Our team is comprised of certified and experienced personnel from a variety of technical disciplines including: mechanical engineering, cathodic protection, paint inspection, chemistry, metallurgy, and materials science. We also have a vast array of laboratory and field testing equipment. All of MATCO's testing equipment is calibrated on a routine basis in accordance with both national and international standards, and is ready to be put to use at a moment's notice.

The MATCO team has experience working in many diverse fields and with many different clients. Some of our clients include Bridge Inspectors, Allegheny Energy, US Airways and AC Dellovade, GE, IBM, NASA, Valmont, and TVA.

Our team includes NACE Certified Corrosion / Cathodic Protection/ Materials Selection/ Design / Coating Specialists and Technicians (*) and other materials experts including:

Dr. M. Zee (*)                                            Mr. Geoff Rhodes (*)

Dr. Don Gibbon                                         Mr. Kevin Groll, P.E. (*)

Dr. Bayer                                                  Ms. Debra Riley (*)

Mr. Marty Latona                                   Mr. Ed Larkin

Ms. Heather Groll (*)                                  Mr. Walter Gretz, P.E.