Imatek has supplied a state of the art data capture modernisation kit to Huntsman Advanced Materials in Basel, Switzerland providing new life and extended functionality to a third party Impact Test System.
Huntsman Advanced Materials is a leading global supplier of synthetic and formulated polymer systems for applications requiring high performance materials.
Huntsman's products include structural adhesives and composites used in aircraft manufacturing, the production of windmill blades for power generation, the construction of liquefied natural gas tankers in the energy industry and the production of golf clubs and skis in the recreation industry. Huntsman also supply materials that are used in the electronics industry to manufacture printed circuit boards for advanced electronic equipment, insulation materials for the electric power industry, for ignition coils, switchgear, insulators and transformers and high performance protective coatings used in the construction of steel bridges, concrete flooring and appliances.
Prior to its modernisation, the impact tester at Huntsman was a basic non-instrumented drop weight machine offering very limited functionality and limited testing ability.
By adding Imatek's C3008 data acquisition system, a high precision laser trigger, Kistler force link and Imatek ImpAcqt software, the machine has been completely transformed and now offers a greatly enhanced range of testing capabilities.
The Imatek instrumentation package is laboratory grade and offers both high versatility and powerful analysis features including Fourier analysis, for displaying the complete range of frequencies captured during an impact event.
This is very useful in examining the frequencies generated by the specimen undergoing test and the frequencies inherent in the test equipment itself. Imatek's system uses a Kistler force link instead of a strain gauge which gives better quality results.
Imatek's turnkey system comprises the C3008 data acquisition system, 2 user licence impact testing software and T1000 laser trigger system.
The T1000 high precision laser/detector trigger interfaces directly to the C3008 data acquisition hardware. The T1000 can provide a trigger to the data acquisition when the optical path between the laser and the detector is obscured, and with a suitable target can provide highly accurate, low noise velocity measurement.
The ImpAcqt software is a single package that is used to configure the data acquisition hardware and to analyse the resulting data. It may also be used in stand-alone mode for offline analysis.
The software is designed for high productivity and includes many ease-of-use features and very powerful analysis and reporting. The user interface is highly configurable to let the customer work in the way required.
A series of user levels can be defined to restrict access to certain features of the software so that less advanced users can use the software without the risk of producing invalid results.
Support for the high-speed video option is fully integrated into the software, including camera set-up, automatic control over lighting, and the display of video data from within the software either as still images, moving images, or linked to a graph marker to correlate captured data and video. It also lets you extract calibrated measurements from the video data.
Imatek has already supplied similar systems to Airbus, Imperial College London and at the research and development centre of Corus Steel (now Tata) in the UK. In all cases the C3008 data acquisition system and impact testing software have been added to third party testing equipment. In the case of Corus and Imperial, Imatek has also supplied an Integrated High Speed Video system.
Imatek is a leading UK based manufacturer of materials testing equipment primarily in the fields of impact testing. Imatek's products are used all over the world to test the properties of materials, components and assemblies in industries such as aerospace, polymer processing, steel production, automotive and academic research.