Forensic engineering has a much lower profile than forensic science: its work is normally associated with civil courts and with many cases not appearing before any court at all. The current strands of forensic engineering can be traced from company laboratories that traditionally have dealt with in-service failures, fire investigators and ad hoc background investigations into high profile accidents, such as the collapse of the Tay Bridge.

In terms of today's forensic engineering, there is an increased emphasis on investigating the cause of failure of consumer items. This is because firms are being sued more frequently about allegedly defective products. There is also a continuing need for the investigation of fires, explosions, air and rail crashes and other important accidents or possible crimes.

This section looks at the methods employed today by forensic engineers in their investigation of accidents. Dr Michael Edwards and Dr Peter Lewis provide an overview of the subject, including case studies of the Challenger, Concorde and Hatfield disasters.

Dr Michael Edwards (CEng FIM) is a senior lecturer in the Department of Materials and Medical Sciences at the Shrivenham campus of Cranfield University. Before coming into university teaching he was a research metallurgist with Rolls-Royce Limited, working on alloys for hot section components, including blades, vanes and sheet materials. His current forensic engineering work ranges from fatigue failures in school buses to explosive damage in oil pipelines.

Dr Peter Lewis (CEng FIM MAE MFSS) is a senior lecturer in the Department of Materials Engineering at the Open University, with extensive experience of failure investigation of polymer and composite products. He is course chair of T838 (Design and Manufacture of Polymer products) and T839 (Forensic Engineering).