Materials engineering consultancy · since 2009
Answering Materials Questions
MTIS provides a full range of services linked to assessing and enhancing the performance of materials in service. The MTIS team carries out failure investigations, supports corrosion and integrity decisions, selects and verifies materials, designs and coordinates testing, and develops bespoke manufacturing and repair solutions.
What does MTIS do?
All services →Nine service lines focused on the performance of materials.
Failure Investigation
Evidence-led investigation of component and asset failures: mechanism identification, root-cause reasoning and practical corrective actions.
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Corrosion & Integrity
Damage-mechanism identification and interpretation supporting integrity, life-extension and repair-or-replace decisions.
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Materials Selection
Selecting and assessing materials against performance requirements, environment, processing route, cost and failure risk.
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Characterisation & Testing
Defining what evidence each problem needs, designing and delivering the test programme through independently selected specialist laboratories, and interpreting the results into decisions.
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Expert Review
Independent technical review of investigation reports, test results and laboratory work — a documented second view where a decision rests on how strong the evidence really is.
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Bespoke Manufacturing and Repair Solutions
Alternative manufacturing route development and materials judgement for urgent repair and design decisions.
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Training and Advisory
Training courses for non-specialist engineers, taught from real investigation experience, and standing advisory support for teams with no metallurgist of their own.
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Forensic Investigation
A materials investigation run so its findings can be relied on by an insurer, a supplier or a court — custody documented, destructive steps notified, alternatives recorded.
Read more →Expert Witness
Independent expert opinion given to a court or tribunal, including on matters MTIS did not investigate — reports prepared to Order 40A, Rules of Court 2012.
Read more →MTIS Failure Investigator
How it works →MTIS Failure Investigator uses AI and MTIS-developed failure-investigation knowledge to support failure-mode identification and, in Expert mode, root-cause analysis. Outputs are not automatically reviewed by an MTIS engineer. Professional review is available separately to all users.
Basic
Free — 6 investigations per 12 months, with a simplified report viewed online.
Standard
USD 99 per named user per 12 months — 12 investigations, full FI reports without RCA, PDF and secure case-package export.
Expert
USD 299 per named user per 12 months — 36 investigations, integrated RCA, PDF and secure case-package export.
How we investigate a failure
Our failure-investigation method: a staged, hypothesis-driven approach that reads the evidence to reach a defensible answer — capture and preserve, test, identify the mechanism, find the root cause, and act.
Evidence
Capture and preserve the component, its history and its context before anything is lost.
Testing
Targeted examination — in-house where within our capability, otherwise designed and coordinated through partner laboratories.
Fundamental Mechanism / Failure Mode
Read the evidence to identify how the damage progressed: fatigue, corrosion, cracking, overload or a combination.
Root cause
Root-cause analysis, recognising that not every issue is materials or metallurgical in origin — wider contributing factors are tested against the evidence too.
Action
Practical corrective and preventive recommendations you can implement.
Senior engineers, honest capability
Every MTIS project is led by a senior engineer — the person you speak to is the person who does the work.
Dr Andrew Spowage — Materials Performance Specialist
CEng, CSci, FIMMM, CSSBB. PhD in Materials Engineering (University of Nottingham) and a specialist in materials characterisation, forensics and testing. Over two decades spanning industrial failure investigation and a senior academic career — Associate Professor and Head of Department at Nottingham, Visiting Professor at Surrey — with earlier research roles in UK aerospace and defence. Leads MTIS investigations from evidence intake to final report.
Eur.Ing. Nigel Brewitt — Metallurgical Failure Specialist
CEng, FIMMM. MSc in Advanced Physical Metallurgy (Sheffield) with a postgraduate diploma in corrosion science, specialising in failure investigation, welding engineering and corrosion. A former Rolls-Royce Aerospace and Marine failure investigator, combining deep metallurgical expertise with decades of hands-on industrial practice.
MTIS maintains limited in-house practical capability for inspection, sample preparation, secure storage and selected materials-processing/support tasks, and works with a network of specialist laboratory partners to access the most appropriate test methods for each investigation.
Formed in 2009, MTIS answers materials questions with the most appropriate tools per project — without the overhead, or the bias, of a captive laboratory.
About MTIS & our partner-lab modelWhere we work
All sectors →Real-world, sector-specific experience — the mechanics of failure do not respect industry boundaries, and neither does our method.
Latest from MTIS
All insights →Materials selection for corrosive environments
Why "more corrosion resistant" is not a strategy, and how to select against the actual mechanism.
Evidence handlingWhat to preserve in the first 24 hours after a component fails
The evidence you save — or destroy — in the first day usually decides how good the answer can be.
Testing strategyMaterials characterisation for non-specialists
What the common techniques actually tell you, in plain engineering language.
Performance of materials. Bring us the question.
A failure, a corrosion or integrity problem, a material choice, a verification, a manufacturing route, a training need — describe it, and a senior engineer will scope the right approach with you, project-by-project.