More materials tests each day than ever before
An activity with Energie Technologie (ET) in Germany and the GSTP has reduced the turnaround time of a series of material characterisation tests, enabling more to be performed each day than ever before.
ET was already operating a material characterisation service for material testing under conditions down to 20 K in original cryogenic fluids (especially liquid hydrogen).
However, the time it took to turnaround each test was limited due to temperature and safety issues. For example, a standard tensile test took around three hours to complete, allowing just two experiments to be carried out in a standard working day.
The main objective of the activity was to reduce this three-hour turnaround time significantly to allow a higher number of tests to be performed each working day.
This optimisation for the different test methods and campaigns involved three activities:
- Shortening the warm-up time of the test apparatus after cryogenic testing
- Improving the tools and the components of the test machine in order to reduce set-up and disassembly time
- Addressing methods for process automisation.
The results were implemented and the facility revised. The main targets of the activity, to improve setup times by 30 per cent and the warm-up time by 50 per cent were met. This means, the resulting turnaround time for a standard tensile test in is now about two hours, allowing four tests to be performed per working day.
GT17 - 151MS Material Characterisation Service Efficiency Increasing closed in March 2020.