Researchers and technicians in the Composites Lab perform lay-up and bonding operations and work directly with the Mechanical Test Lab and the National Center for Advanced Materials Performance to understand the effects of heat, moisture, contamination and repairs on advanced materials. The lab also provides regularly scheduled hands-on training workshops.
Capabilities
- Lay-up
- Material equivalency testing
- Material qualification testing
- Static and cyclic testing (ASTM and non-standard)
- Physical testing
- Quality assurance testing
- Investigation of adhesive behavior
- Bonded repairs
- Controlled impact damage
- Damage tolerance of sandwich panels
- Aging studies
- Specimen conditioning
- Environmental testing (-200F to +600F)
- Adhesive characterization of fatigued and damaged bonded joints
- Full-scale structural testing
- Effects of defects and NDI standards
- Specimen machining (ASTM and non-standard)
- Test fixture fabrication
- NDI of test coupons
- Strain gauging and specimen QC
- Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy/ High Performance Liquid Chromatograph
Facilities & Equipment
- 7,420 sq. ft. laboratory
- Autoclave (3’ x 5’, 800°F, 200 psi)
- Autoclave (3’ x 6’, 800° F, 200 psi)
- Autoclave (6’ x 12’, 800° F, 200 psi)
- Multiple environmental chambers and conditioning environments
- Dynamic mechanical analysis units
- Differential scanning calorimetry
- Thermogravimetric analyzer
- Optical microscope with video analysis
- Stereoscope x350 with hand-held inspection unit
- 3 Programmable walk-in ovens (500° F)
- Ultrasonic NDI units to perform pulse and echo and TTU scans with curved panel capability
- RTM resin pumps
- Walk-in freezers (-20° F)
- Lay-up rooms
- Machine shop specialized for composite material processing
- Instron Dynatup 8250 with environmental chamber
- Coordinate measuring machine
- Pheonix 4000 SEM and energy dispersive system
- Thermal shock chamber (-160° F to 500° F)