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The centre is available to support North West-based aerospace and other composites businesses, and is said to offer an unrivalled rage of test and evaluation capabilities.
New facilities include the Instron mechanical testing laboratory and a climate controlled (temperature and humidity) testing laboratory which houses eight Instron testing machines. The test machines are all controlled by Bluehill 2 software and can perform tests on properties such as tensile strength and stiffness, compressive strength and stiffness, and flexural properties. Tests can be performed under quasi-static or fatigue conditions and in many cases at sub-zero or elevated temperatures.
The facility also has a range of NDE equipment including X-ray tomography, C-Scan, Omniscan, Shearography and Pulsed Thermography, whilst for destructive testing, the centre has gas gun facilities for ballistic testing with associated high speed photographic equipment. NCCEF can manufacture test samples as well as carrying out the testing.
For more details or to attend the open days on June 15-16, contact Niall Macfadyen at nccef@manchester.ac.uk
www.materials.manchester.ac.uk/industry
