This is a recorded pair of failure-analysis case studies presented at IMAT 2025, the kind of technical content that rarely escapes the conference circuit. The first case examines environmental stress cracking (ESC) in automotive interior plastics — a subtle failure mode where a polymer under tensile stress cracks not from mechanical overload, but from chemical attack by everyday substances like sunscreen, hand sanitizer, or cleaning wipes. ESC is notorious because the offending chemical often leaves no visible residue, and the cracks propagate along stress concentrations that designers didn't consider "high stress" at all.

The second case dissects elastomeric gasket failure, which touches on compression set, chemical compatibility, thermal aging, and the way rubber chemistry evolves under service conditions. Gaskets are one of those components that everyone assumes are "just rubber" until they leak — and the forensic work of proving why a seal failed (was it the compound choice, the surface finish, the bolt torque pattern, or an unexpected chemical exposure?) is genuinely instructive.

ASM International is the materials science professional society, so the presenters approach this with proper metallurgical/polymer science rigor: fractography, FTIR, DSC, and the logical chain from evidence to root cause. If you design plastic parts, specify seals, or do any kind of failure analysis, this is a masterclass in how to think about polymer failures systematically.