Expert and Forensic Investigations

Noria’s subject-matter specialists provide expert witness services, litigation team support and forensic investigations to the legal field

Forensic Investigation and Expert Witnessing

Noria’s subject-matter specialists provide expert witness services, litigation team support and forensic investigations to the legal field.  We have extensive experience working with legal counsel on both plaintiff and defense litigation cases.  We are ready to tackle cases from the simple to the complex including product liability issues, patent infringement cases, business-interruption litigation, tribological failures and industrial accidents.

Noria experts, working on behalf of clients, commonly provide technical advisory services, technical reports, professional opinion letters/affidavits and expert testimony.  Because of the nature of our field of specialty, we commonly use tribological and analytical chemistry methods to analyze failed components, lubricants and machines.  In such cases only the most advanced laboratories are selected with specific experience in litigation and legal protocol.

Noria benefits from broad resources that are unavailable from other service organizations.  These include:

    • In-house Subject-Matter Experts.  Our full-time staff of technical experts in lubrication and tribology possess multi-disciplinary skills and experience.
    • Contract Consultants and Specialists.  Dozens of contract technical experts have collaborated with Noria over the years, working on some of the most difficult and challenging projects.  Noria is quick to engage these services where such specialized skills and analytical capabilities are required.
    • Knowledge Warehouse.  The world’s largest searchable technical library consists of more than 1500 technical reference books and more than 50,000 technical papers, articles and reports, all relating to lubrication, tribology, oil analysis and machine reliability.
    • Case History Database.  Noria maintains comprehensive case files of all past failure investigation cases.  These are commonly used as reference when working on similar cases.
Our technical experts have decades of cumulative experience in analytical and troubleshooting methods related to physical and chemical lubricant analysis, tribology, contamination control, filter debris analysis and wear particle characterization.   We conduct onsite inspections and perform detailed failure causation analysis of components such as rolling-element bearings, gears, engines, pumps and others.  Below is a list of Noria’s unique range of analytical capabilities.
Laboratories are selected for each case based on the nature of the failure, lubricant type and required test protocol. Because of the hundreds of commercial contract laboratories offering services, a discriminating approach to selection can be made for the benefit of the client in achieving efficient and accurate case outcome. The following is a list of testing specializations offered by Noria-approved contract labs:
    • Metallography and metallurgy
    • Grease analysis
    • Filter debris analysis
    • Wear particle identification and characterization
    • Particle contamination characterization
    • Infrared and molecular spectroscopy
    • Elemental spectroscopy (ICP, RDE, XRF, SEM-EDS, acid dissolution, etc.)
    • Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry
    • Radiological fluid testing
    • Chemical microscopy
    • ASTM lubricant performance testing
    • In-service oil analysis
    • Tribometry and film-strength testing
    • Microbial contamination testing
    • Aviation and aerospace fluid analysis
    • Fire-resistant fluids analysis
    • Varnish and sludge analysis