Experimental equipment

The experimental equipment within the Material Research Group contains of:

-Transmission electron microscopy (2009) - JEOL JEM 2100, LaB6 cathode and a digital camera Gatan SC1000 Orius, equipped with EDS and STEM detectors.

-Scanning electron microscope (2020) - FE-SEM JEOL JSM-7900 F equipped with EDS X-MaxN Silicon Drift Detector, 20 mm2 and EBSD C-Nano detector (map acquisition software: AZTEC, map post-processing software: Aztec Crystal) manufactured by Oxford instruments. SEM is equipped with Kammrath-Weiss in-situ tension/compression module, capacity 10-5000N. Struers equipment (cutting, polishing, electro-chemical polishing) for SEM and TEM specimen preparation including Gatan PIPS II 695 (2018) and JEOL IB-19530CP (2020) ion gun equipment.

- Optical microscope (2022) Leica DM6M fully motorized with Brightfield (BF), High-dynamic Darkfield (HDF), Differential Interference Contrast (DIC), Polarization (POL) and Phase Expert module for multiple phase quantification and Grain Expert module for grain size distribution.

-Other optical microscopes Leica DMI 3000 M inverted, Polyvar Met Reichtert-Jung and Olympus SZH10 stereo-microscope.

-Optical proﬁler ContourGT-K, Bruker, with Vision 64 software for surface analysis and visualization.

-Mechanical tests - Instron 8801, Insron 8501 and Instron 4411 with options to carry out tension, compression 3- and 4-point bending, fatigue (including elevated temperature measurements up to 1000C), two 20 kHz ultrasonic fatigue test instruments operating in tension/compression/bending modes, Struers Duramin-40 macro-microhardness tester (2022)..

- Additive manufacturing – Renishaw AM400 metal printer (2017) and Stratasys F370 FDM polymer printer (2016).

-XRD Malvern Panalytical Empyrean X-ray diffractometer (2018), with HighScore Plus software from Malvern Panalytical.

The department has a number of in-house made test rigs: SOFS (Slider on flat surface) for testing friction and wear for example, for sheet metal forming applications, block-on-wheel hot-wear tester up to 1000C under different atmospheres (argon and room), thermal fatigue and soldering test rigs, impact fatigue testing machine (plans for Instron 9400 series tower impact fatigue testing machine). A special testing rig for thin layers (glue).