Materials Laboratory and Testing

In analyzing a failure or accident, additional examination of the evidence and/or testing may be required.  AEGI has a well equipped inspection area, as well as the capability to design and conduct testing, and re-creations of events.  Our materials laboratory is equipped to handle the most detailed examinations.  

Testing

AEGI has conducted numerous instrumented tests.  Projects have included the following:

High speed and low speed vehicle crash tests, involving automobiles and motorcycles.

Vehicle roll-over tests

Operational tests of various appliances

Burn rate and timing tests on stoves

UL tests of various components

Various recreations of accident situations

Materials Laboratory

AEGI has a well equipped materials laboratory.  The major capabilities are as follows:

Microsopy – AEGI has a stereomicroscope, metallograph, and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) capabilities.  The SEM also has Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), which can qualitatively and semi-quantitatively identify elements in a sample.  These allow AEGI to analyze any flaws in a material as well as examine fracture surfaces to determine the failure origin as well as the mode. 

Metallography – The materials laboratory has all the necessary equipment for metallographic sample preparation and analysis. 

Mechanical Properties Analysis – This allows AEGI to determine the properties of a material, or to determine if a material meets a suppliers product specifications.  AEGI has the following equipment.

• Instron universal test machine which is capable of testing tension or compression up to 20,000 lbs. load.  Other capabilities include testing in torsion and fatigue loading.
• Wilson hardness tester which can measure Rockwell A, B, or C.
• Leco M-400 microhardness tester which can measure both Vickers and Knoop.
• Proceq Equo-tip portable hardness tester which can measure material hardness in the field.

Portable Radiographic (x-ray) machine

Keywords: Metallurgy, Metallurgical, Metallography, metallugirst, HRC, HRB, HRA, HV, Metallograph, EDAX, EDX, compression, tension, polishing, etching, sample preparation, ceramic, polymer, plastic, sectioning.