Activities in this lab center around a wide variety of mechanical testing techniques, including uniaxial loading (both quasi-static and cyclic), instrumented indentation, fatigue crack growth, environmental testing (air, inert gas) and at temperature (from -60 °C to 1600 °C), using a furnace with super Kanthal heat elements, as shown below.
Light gas gun capable of launching projectiles at speeds of up to 500 m/s.
Standard and high precision polishing equipment, optical and electron microscopy (SEM), and a small load frame (up to 1,000 lbs) for in-situ testing in the SEM. This microscope is also equipped with detectors and software for Orientation Imaging MicroscopyTM (OIM) to measure crystallography as well as Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) to do measure chemical composition. Miscellaneous equipment includes desktop CNC mills and lathes, data and image acquisition equipment and traveling microscopes for monitoring of samples during testing.
High Temperature Indentation Assembly:
MTL is equipped with a high temperature indentation assembly capable of doing material
hardness studies at temperatures up to ~1200°C. The assembly is built in an enclosed environment to allow the chamber to be filled with inert UHP argon gas. Our load capabilities can go as low as 1 kgf during indentation. The set-up can handle any material type, and samples can be as large as 0.5” in diameter. The assembly has a built-in translational stage, giving us the capability to do several indents in one single experimental run. With this assembly in a single run, we will do multiple indents at different temperatures in order to fully characterize the material’s hardness across an entire temperature range.
Location: ISTB2 129