Mr. Neville Tranter

Following completion of his degree in Metallurgy at the University of Birmingham, Neville worked as a Graduate Heat Treatment Engineer at Wallwork Heat Treatment. This focused his knowledge of working in hazardous environments. It was from the work undertaken at Wallwork that Neville gained an interest in failure investigations and decided to broaden his knowledge by undertaking a Master of Science degree in Forensic Engineering and Science at Cranfield University.

Following his Masters, Neville worked for Intertek Plc, running Rolls-Royce’s out-sourced Metallurgical Laboratory. This gave him exposure to materials science and general engineering of gas turbine engines and failure analysis. Intertek also undertook failure investigations from a wide range of third-parties. Through this work, he conducted over 100 metallurgical and failure investigations including:
• multi-million pound oil and gas industry losses
• medical devices and equipment
• railway rolling-stock and systems
• consumer products and patent infringement.

After Intertek, Neville moved to Goodrich Corporation as a Materials Engineer where he investigated failures, non-conformance and manufacturing issues on hydraulic and electric aerospace actuation systems.

Since joining Hawkins, Neville has specialised in the investigation of engineering failures and personal injuries and is currently working as a Principal Associate in our Birmingham office.  

Examples of his investigations include:
Personal Injury:
• Manual handling (e.g. during manual lifting of large stone items in a shop/workshop environment, manual lifting of steel columns into place, pushing and pulling activities and repeated lifting operations in factories).
• Vibration exposure (e.g. during the use of powered tools and during the use of manual tools).
• Work at Height (e.g. falls from ladders, platforms, vehicles, scaffolds, onto safety netting during the construction phase in a wide range of work environments such as heavy industry, chemical processing, trades, delivery and logistics). Also including the failure of several loft ladders and other falls form height during work in domestic properties.
• Trapping hazards (e.g. during the use of press tools, human interactions with plant and machinery and vehicle tail-lifts)
• Slipping and tripping hazards (e.g. during the use of stairs, buildings in general and whilst using material handling equipment);
• Lifting operations and the failure of equipment during lifting operations.
• Transportation, pertaining to buses, bicycles, delivery vehicles, heavy goods vehicles. Also during inflation and fitting of vehicle components such as tyres.
• Wheelchairs and other assistive living devices such as domestic lifts.
• Railway incidents during maintenance work.
• Workplace transport safety (incidents involving pedestrians and vehicles).
• Tipping of plant and material handling equipment.
• Stored energy and the use of power tools/work equipment.
• Automated powered doors, gates, shutters and others.
• Injuries related to the failure of chairs, stools, the built environment, glass and gym equipment.
• Injuries during the processing of metals (e.g. molten metal ejections and explosions).
• Sudden releases of pressure (e.g. during pipework testing).
• Incidents involving grounds maintenance and agricultural activities.
• Hot water bottle failures.

Engineering:
• Lifting equipment (such as cranes and elevated platforms).
• Equipment for working at height (such as ladders and mobile platforms).
• Domestic and commercial escapes of water, oil, gases and other fluids from a wide range of systems (such as fire suppression, heating and cooling, waste water, wholesome water and Utility company distribution networks).
• Failure of parts of buildings, structures and their systems (such as the lifting of floor tiles, water ingress, shrinkage of wood flooring, fixture and fitting failures, roofing system failures, heating, ventilation and cooling systems and glazing failures).
• Explosions of industrial and commercial equipment (such as application equipment, gas cylinders, car tyres and furnaces).
• Mechanical failures of industrial and agricultural equipment (such as power presses, hydraulic/pneumatic systems, balers, bulk storage/process tanks, printing presses, injection moulding machines, winding machines, automated parking systems, anaerobic digestion plants and other process industry equipment and systems, fans and other rotating equipment, such as engines and turbines).
• Medical devices, equipment and prosthesis.
• Failures and problems arising from the use of plant and other industrial equipment.
• Gym, leisure and other items equipment (such as chairs, flotation devices and domestic items).
• Corrosion in a wide range of environments, from multi-million-dollar process plant failures to windows on domestic properties.

Member of The Welding Institute