Alphatek is a coating company that supplies corrosion, wear, heat or electrically resistive coatings to a number of different industries. The quality of its plasma coatings depends entirely on adhesion to their substrates and must meet industry standard ASTM C633.
The requirement was to determine the force needed to pull off the test samples of coating. A powerful bonding agent that does not compromise the properties of their coating is used to stick together two metal rods with coated surfaces. After curing, the rods are pulled apart in a direction normal to the plane of the joint.
The coatings must withstand the minimum standard force, even if the glue fails. Separation forces of up to 48 kN are achieved.
Coated test rods are bonded, cured, then pulled apart.
Solution
In order to exert the high forces required, Mecmesin provided a twin-column test stand
with 50 kN intelligent load cell. For perfectly aligned tensile loading, quick-change grip adapters hold each end of the test rod.
The whole process is controlled by the Emperor™ software through a library of test programs and a real-time graph displays the characteristics of the sample under load. The rapid phase of failure can be very accurately profiled, with data sampling up to 1000 Hz, and calibrated compensation for deformations of the test stand. Instant pass/fail indication can be given by including quality-standards values in the test program calculations. For subsequent analysis and comparison of sample performance, all data is fully recorded.
In addition to replacing third party analysis, the test facility also offers faster turn-around and complete reproducibility of test conditions, all in a system that is versatile, affordable and extremely convenient to use.
System
- Quick-change grip adapters
- 50 kN intelligent loadcell
- MultiTest 50-i test stand (Superseded by the OmniTest 50 universal testing machine)
Testimonial
The system is simple to use and produces good graphical data.
Roy McIntyre, Technical Manager, Alphatek Hyperformance Coatings
This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by Mecmesin.
For more information on this source, please visit Mecmesin.