Composite materials

WHY polymers and composite materials are increasingly strategic for industry and how TEC Eurolab supports customers?
Research studies on new materials now make it available on the market innovative solutions for the mechanical industry leading manufacturers to use more and more of polymers and composites in place of traditional metal alloys. Use of these new materials allows to reduce weight of components made while ensuring comparable and sometimes higher performance.
Growth use of polymers and composites implies a level of knowledge of their characteristics more in-depth, starting from the design of the compositions of the polymeric blend to the verification of finished component characteristics.
TEC Eurolab, with advanced technologies and qualified technicians, supports clients at 360 °, starting from material’s quality control and performance testing, comparative analyzes, investigation of complex issues comes out during design, manufacturing and post-manufacturing phases.

HOW polymers and composite materials are tested and WHAT results?
The chemical characterization by infrared spectroscopy, thermal analysis and methodologies dedicated mining permit to identify and quantify the major components of a polymer blend (polymer base and main additives), to identify the fundamental thermal parameters related to phase transitions of first and second order (as glass transitions, mergers, crystallization and cross-linking) and consider any degradation or oxidation of the material.
Physical and mechanical tests to determination of fluidity, softening point and the heat distortion temperature under load allows to evaluate the temperature behavior of polymeric materials.
Static mechanical properties of polymeric materials and composites are determined through universal testing machine equipped with specific tools to determine the characteristics of tensile, compression, bending and cutting not only at room temperature but also at high and low temperature.
For dynamic mechanical tests we are able to evaluate the whole lifecycle of components through specific equipment to fatigue tests and determine the impact resistance with Charpy and Izod test methods, at different temperatures.
The elastic response and the resistance to penetration may be determined in all typical polymers scales (Shore A, D and Rockwell) on material, also after conditioning or accelerated aging tests.
Physical and mechanical tests requires sample preparation according to standards. By semifinished product they may be extracted either by injection molding or by mechanical manufacturing (water cutting, CNC machines).

Final meeting with client and Report release
TEC Eurolab supports customers by sharing impression and testing performances already from start of investigation. We start a “travel” that will lead the customer to choose best test methods and the most appropriate ways to achieve goals.

Your challenge

Polymers and composites are increasingly strategic materials in the industry to replace traditional metal alloys. The use of these new materials makes it possible to reduce the weight of the components produced while guaranteeing comparable and sometimes superior performance. The massive use of polymers and composites implies a high level of knowledge of their characteristics, starting from the design of polymer mixture compositions to verification of the properties of the finished component.

Our solution

TEC Eurolab is the only Italian materials testing center, able to provide all the destructive tests and investigations on composite materials according to the main international standards ISO - EN - SACMA - ASTM - BSS - VW spec - PV - FIAT spec - STA. With latest generation instruments and specific skills in the field of destructive and non-destructive testing, we are able to support the customer at 360 ° starting from the simple quality control of materials and performance checks with respect to specifications, passing through comparative analysis between related materials, up to evaluations of complex problems highlighted during the design, production and post-production phases with tailor-made test projects.

EXPERTISE su materiali compositi

TESTING on composites

MECHANICAL TESTS (from -70° to 250° C)
prepreg (tensile/ilss)
laminates (tensile, compression/bending/open hole, filled hole, bearing, shear gic, cai, fatigue)
sandwich e honeycomb (long beam, drum peel, flat wise, lap shear)
adhesives and sealants (lap shear, t-peel, tear test, peel test, ilss)

FRACTOGRAPHY
Double Cantilever Beam (DCB) – Mixed Mode Bending (MMB) - GIC

CHEMICAL AND PHISICAL TESTS
chemical analysis (ft-ir, xrd, eds )
material composition (resin content, fiber area weight, voids, volatiles, density, gel time, resin flow)
thermal analysis (dma, tga, dsc, smoke analysis)

AGING TESTS
chemical aging (immersion, wet & dry cycles, both in liquid and in vapor)
thermal and humidity aging (continuous, cyclic both in temperature and in humidity)
radiation aging (solar, UV, Xenon test)
combined

FAILURE ANALYSIS
problem examination
fractography
root cause analysis
reappear test

NON DESTRUCTIVE TESTING
Ultrasonic Phased Array test
2D X-Raytest on field

INDUSTRIAL COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY
X-Ray 3D Analysis, defects evaluation;
3D micrometric dimensional control (tolerance verification and CAD comparison);
Assembly, bonding, lay up analysis
Fiber flow analysis
3D images for Reverse Engineering
Certification of test blocks for UT