Legal Consulting Services
The Hendrix Group Inc. is a materials and corrosion engineering organization specializing in materials engineering, failure analysis, corrosion investigations, laboratory testing, product liability and fitness-for-service analyses. Out clients are those in the petrochemical, refining, oil and gas, pipeline, and legal and insurance industries.
We specialize in determining how and why equipment, metals, alloys, and non metals fail. Other, related investigations determine the fitness for service and mechanical integrity of equipment that has deteriorated due to corrosion, fracture, mechanical damage, exposure to fire, abuse, improper manufacture or application. Our tools include our knowledge of material properties, equipment fabrication practives and codes and standards, plus tests and inspections that we conduct.
David Hendrix has provided litigation support and expert witness testimony on a variety of causes involving equipment mechanical and corrosion related failure, product reliability, fitness for service, and testing and inspection of equipment and components. Case support has included researching material and corrosion properties, performing literature searches, laboratory testing, failure analysis of equipment and components, and advising on industry practices regarding equipment reliability and inspection standards of care. Support has been divided between defense and plaintiff causes.
Mr. Hendrix has consulted on many cases involving failure of aboveground storage tanks where product leaked into the ground, including advising on past and present industry practices for maintaining the integrity of storage tanks. Other representative cases include:
- high-temperature alloy material selection and properties for ethylene cracking furnace tubes,
- failure of "jack-up" components on an offshore drilling rig,
- best practices regarding implementation of mechanical integrity,
- failure of a boat stearing mechanism,
- sinking of a floating dock due to failure coated expanded polystyrene billets,
- corrosion of process equipment in a chemical plant due to chloride contaminants in a supplier's feed stock
- corrosion under fireproofing in a refinery
In these and other cases, support has included conducting laboratory tests to simulate corrosion damage, performing reviews of other expert reports, helping with case preparation, and forming opinions on the technical merits of a case.
A detailed list of active and settled cases is available upon request to identified, interested individuals.