L.Raymond & Associates
A Professional Consultant Corporation
2549B EastBluff Dr. #172 Newport Beach, CA 92660
Phone: (949) 474-7728DrR@LouRaymond.com
www.LouRaymond.com

Louis Raymond, Ph.D.
P.E. (CA), FASTM, FIAE

Dr. Louis Raymond has spent 50 years on research of hydrogen embrittlement failure mechanisms and the development of cost-effective accelerated Fracture Mechanics testing protocols in support of government and industry.

*Society Affiliations: During this time, he served as Chairman of ASTM F07 on Aerospace & Aircraft for about six years, and Chairman of ASTM F07.04 on Hydrogen Embrittlement for about 30 years. Dr. Raymond is very active working with various other coating and fastener standard organizations, including ISO, Federal, Military, NAS, SAE / AMS and IFI.

*Advisory Board: Dr. Raymond served as a Special Consultant to the Scientific Advisory Board on the F-111 Failure Analysis Program. He first became involved with hydrogen embrittlement for the Aerospace Corporation working on the failure of stainless steel bolts for the Titan Launch Vehicle Systems. Since then, he has served on the National Academy of Sciences and the National Materials Advisory Board, helping to develop accelerated test methods for Hydrogen Embrittlement, Fatigue, and Fracture Toughness within the frame work of Fracture Mechanics.

*Teaching: Concurrent to his consulting and advisory work, Dr. Raymond served as an Adjunct Professor at California State University Long Beach.  In directing graduate research programs in these areas, he developed a very active industry-university student co-op graduate study program. While at the university, he received research funding from the David Taylor Naval Ship Research Development Center for developing accelerated test methods for hydrogen embrittlement of welded structures.

* Fracture Mechanics: Over the past 20 years, Dr. Raymond has been president and director of technical operations for his own company, LRA Consulting and R&D Laboratories.  Here he continues work on the fields of fracture mechanics.  He received a research grant form the Army (AMMRC) to verify the use of an imposed potential to simulate galvanic coupling. And, in a cooperative study with Aerojet and Standard Pressed Steel, he received a grant from NASA for evaluating the use of Multiphase MP 159 alloy for fastener applications on the ASRM.  Dr. Raymond served as a consultant for the Aerospace Corporation and worked on a study with Boeing Space Division Seattle, on Custom 455 for use as a torsion beam in the Interim Upper Stage of the Shuttle.

* Patents: Dr. Raymond has developed and patented a computer-controlled digital displacement hydrogen embrittlement accelerated testing system under contract from a Navy Small Business Innovative Research Grant (SBIR).  This research led to the development and commercialization of the Rising Step Load™ (RSL) testing system that is currently manufactured by Fracture Diagnostics International (FDI) resulting in three patents: USA Patent No. 5585570, 550-5095 and 554-9007).

*NASA: Dr. Raymond continues his consulting work in failure analysis, working on such manufactures products as gears for Apache, Blackhawk helicopters, hydraulic actuators and pistons for aircraft, and MP35N locknuts for NASA space launch vehicle systems.  All of these analyses are under taken using accelerated RSL™ testing techniques.  Dr. Raymond has also worked on behalf of NASA in failure analysis of the space shuttle Challenger, and is the recipient of the NASA Inventor's Award for Space Processing (1978).

*Non-aerospace Applications: At LRA, Dr. Raymond is very active in applying his testing methodology to non-aerospace and aircraft applications, such as with propeller blades for supertankers, windmills for the DOE, trains for the DOT, offshore platforms for the DOI, icebreakers for the Coast Guard.  More recently, under another SBIR contract, Dr. Raymond had been applying these accelerated test methods in support of the Navy's Fracture Toughness Review Program (FTRP) and Material Selection Process (MSP) being applied to all new structurally critical marine designs.

*Fastener Technology Center:  Dr. Raymond is active in failure and life analysis of fasteners taking into account the effects of fatigue and exposure to the environment both during and after service.  He has established LRA Laboratories as a "Technology Center for the Fastener System and Design Analysis". In 2006 Dr. Raymond received the Industrial Fastener Institute (IFI) Science Award.  Recently, he has initiated a series of articles on The Structural Integrity of Aerospace Fasteners in www.fastenerjournal.com.

*Publications: Dr. Raymond actively lectures and writes articles on the effects of processing, including the effects of heat treatment and coatings on the service performance of fasteners.  The studies incorporate the most recent and advanced concepts of fatigue and fracture mechanics, as well as the newest technological advances, for use in the aerospace and aircraft industries. His articles commonly appear in The American Fastener Journal, ASTM Standardization News, and Corrosion (a publication of NACE.)

*Consulting: Dr. Raymond works as a consultant with various fastener manufacturers, distributors and users. Recently he worked with the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge authority, Caltrans in conducting a failure analysis on large diameter bolts, in which a new fracture mechanics methodology was developed that takes into account the manufacturing and processing of the threads of a bolt to determine the effective threshold load for environmentally induced stress corrosion cracking of the full size bolt; thereby, also reducing the cost by a factor of 500, from $1 million per test to $2,000 dollars per test.

Links to Laboratory Capabilities

HomeLRAFDIRSLContact
BiographyForensicsShort CoursesPublications