We speak with Nick Aitken about how forensic engineering has changed and how this has impacted the legal sector. He touches on changes in his field which have caused issues for clients, and the challenging nature of being an expert witness.
What common cases are you instructed on and how has this changed since you began practising?
I have been instructed on and also contributed to a wide range of cases, from small domestic fires resulting in minor injury to an individual, through to €100M cases involving the systematic failure of electrical equipment throughout Europe.
I tend to find myself involved in cases where either there has been a failure in a high-value asset, resulting in a loss of revenue and high repair or replacement costs, or there have been high numbers of failures of lower value consumer devices, or a small number of consumer device failures but the failure mode could cause serious injury or endanger life.
A recurring issue I get involved with is the environmental damage of equipment, and in these cases disputes have often arisen as a result of a lack of understanding of, or inappropriate reliance on, ingress protection ratings (IP ratings).
Another common theme is systematic circuit board failure and there is a long list of possible issues that lead to disputes including, but certainly not limited to: the supply of counterfeit components (I frequently find myself analysing components for evidence of them being counterfeits, or “second hand” recycled components); latent defects in electronic components where I still occasionally see the sort of “capacitor plague” issues that led to widespread computer failures at the beginning of the new millennium, incorrectly specified electronic components; deficient sub assembly manufacture.
In terms of recent trends in the type of cases we are engaged with at RINA, I have certainly seen an increase in the volume of work from the renewable energy sector. RINA provides consultancy and expert witness services following subsea cable failures, and as offshore wind has expanded so have the number of instances of very expensive subsea cable failures.
The reliability and availability of Datacentres services has always been critically important, and the rapid increase in data storage requirements in recent years appears has been accompanied to some extent by an increase in the number of failure issues analysed within RINA. For example, I have been involved in investigations into the premature failure of individual server power supplies, fire in data hall lighting units, through to power system analysis following the loss of supply to an entire site. Datacentres are extremely tightly controlled with highly resilient power supplies, but problems do still occur and as the amount of data society generates increases, so I expect to see more work from this sector.
Moreover, how has technology advancements impacted your sector?
I conduct forensic analysis work for clients from many sectors including military, aerospace, and automotive and information technology / consumer. There have been significant changes in electronics manufacture over the past 10 to 20 years including the globalisation of the supply chains, extensive use of sub-contracting and outsourcing in the manufacture process. This has certainly contributed to a dramatic fall in the cost, and aided the proliferation, of consumer electronics.
There is also much more supply chain mixing across sectors. Historically, electronic components for military, aerospace, automotive and consumer uses were supplied by component manufactures who were dedicated to those industry sectors. Today, however, component manufactures (broadly speaking) supply to all of these industries, and this is in part due to the enormous expansion of the consumer electronics market.
This means that for manufacturers in all sectors control over the components used in their products is diminished.
Bearing in mind these points, I would say that the way in which technology advancement has impacted the work I do, including in expert witness cases, is that the actual person or company responsible for the root cause of the failure may now be somewhere down a relatively convoluted supply chain, and the opportunity for substandard or counterfeit components to be incorporated into a manufacturers product has increased – something that is of particular concern to military and aerospace suppliers.
Another recurring issue is component miniaturisation and this is something that occurs whether or not a specific manufacturer actually needs smaller components. As electronic products are made smaller so the separation between electrical components is reduced – and this can increase the likelihood of electrical breakdown and short circuit failures.
In recent years I have seen an increase in the number of investigations we conduct into lithium ion battery failures and that probably reflects the sheer number in use and their increasing use in products other than mobile phones and laptops. Although these investigations have not been litigious so far, the potential for injury and fire following a violent lithium ion battery failure coupled with the enormous number of them that are in use, I think it is quite likely that we will see cases in the future.
What changes would you like to see that may help lessen cases you see at Court?
Thankfully the majority of the cases I have been involved with were civil and were able to be settled out of court. However, I believe companies need to adopt an all-encompassing approach to supply chain quality management that is embedded in their product design for reliability, availability and supportability.
What is the most challenging aspect of being an expert witness and how do you overcome this?
I’m often involved in cases where electrical systems and products have been damaged to some extent by heat or fire. This certainly presents a challenge in terms of analysing the remaining evidence, and definitive conclusions on the root cause of the failure can be difficult to draw, meaning a measured discussion on the balance of probabilities is required. I often find that assessing other similar equipment with a similar usage history is helpful in this respect, or conducting simulations to confirm a working hypothesis.
A key issue in the expert witness work I undertake is establishing or at least providing a reasoned expert opinion on whether the failure was due to deficient design, defective components, poor manufacturing quality, foreseeable user misuse, or unreasonable user misuse. I therefore need to test other examples of the product against the key clauses of the relevant product safety standards, and also establish whether the products were designed and tested against these standards in the first place – and that the appropriate certification and documentation for these tests exists.
Effective communication of technical details with the legal profession must be handled carefully, specifically with respect to being able to describe the electrical and materials science background to a complex failure accurately and precisely, but in a manner that is clearly understood and not misinterpreted by council. I find particular care needs to be paid to clarifications, follow up questions, and requests for modification to any preliminary report. The wording of the questions that I am asked to answer are often and in many ways understandably, designed to address and highlight aspects of the technical details of the failure that are supportive to one side of the argument, but in isolation may give a misleading impression of where blame lies.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Many of the expert witness investigations I perform require multidisciplinary expertise, whether that is chemical expertise for contamination analysis, metallurgy expertise following corrosive or fatigue failures, electronics and electrical device expertise, power systems analysis expertise, or a strong understanding of manufacturing practice and regulatory requirements. I couldn’t perform the detailed investigative work that I do without the analytical laboratory capabilities we have within RINA, and the wide ranging expertise and experience of our consultants.
Nick Aitken MSc, CEng, MIET
RINA
nick.aitken@rina.org01372367366
I work as a consultant forensic engineer and expert witness within RINA primarily working on cases involving electrical and electronic failures in areas such as telecoms, consumer electronics, industrial installations and utilities. The majority of this work is concerned with civil claims following financial losses or injury, but we do get involved in some criminal cases.
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