Materials Testing Services

Mechanical Testing

Ceralink's 6,400 square ft. Materials Testing Services in St. Clairsville, Ohio is equipped for a wide variety of ASTM and custom testing services. Ceralink's new materials testing facility specializes in high-cycle fatigue (HCF) testing of ceramic matrix composites (CMCs). Our mission is to provide excellent customer service, offer custom test set-ups, and rapid turnaround. Our servo-hydraulic frames range in capacity from 2.5 to 22 kip(11 to 100 kN), with a temperature range from -101 to 1343 °C (-150 to 2450 °F). We can also perform static tensile, compressive, and flexural testing of CMCs, metals, and plastics in the same temperature range.

Characterization of mechanical properties of materials over a wide temperature range is a particular area of expertise. Some of our specific capabilities include:

• Failure analysis
• Fatigue crack growth
• Flexural, tensile, and compressive properties
• Fracture toughness
• High cycle fatigue (load control)
• Low cycle fatigue (load or strain control)
• Pre-test aging and conditioning
• Shear
• Strain gauging/instrumentation and data analysis
• Temperature profiling/mapping

Quality testing...Rapid turnaround.

Materials Analysis Services

Our materials analysis capabilities are comprised of chemical, physical, thermal, mechanical, and electrical properties determination following standard test methods if applicable, or customer directed test methods. Ceralink has many different types of material characterization instrumentation in-house as well as convenient and confidential access to state-of-the-art equipment located at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), adjacent to our headquarters in Troy, NY. Some of the materials characterization services we offer are listed below:

Chemistry and Phase ID

• Wet Chemistry

  Liquid phase analysis and elemental characterization of chemicals.
• Trace Analysis (ICP, AA, GC-MS, etc.)

  Analysis of trace chemicals in materials using Inductively Coupled Plasma, Atomic Absorption, and Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometry.
• X-ray Diffraction (XRD)

  Qualitative and quantitative phase analysis and crystallite size determination.
• Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS)

  Elemental analysis coupled with scanning electron microscopy for composition determination on a microscopic scale.
• Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy

  Quantitative identification of organic, certain inorganic materials and functional groups present in compounds.
• Raman Spectroscopy

  Chemical classification by analyzing molecular vibrational frequencies of a material. For determination of molecular structures and compositions of organic and inorganic materials.

Physical

• Density

  Archimedes density or He pycnometry
• Porosity

  Void fraction analysis of porous materials
• Surface Area

  Calculation of material surface area using gas adsorption and BET theory
• Particle Size/Shape/Distribution
• Optical microscopy

  Analysis of metals (Metallography), fracture analysis (Fractography)
• Electron microscopy (SEM, TEM)

  Material particle analysis, failure analysis

Thermophysical

• Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC)

  Reaction and phase change enthalpy determination. (-150°C to 700°C)
• Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA)

  -150°C to 700°C
• Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA)

  Degradation temperature and moisture absorption analysis. (Room Temperature to 1200°C)
• Thermal Conductivity

  Material heat transport properties
• Dilatometry

  Thermal expansion, rate of phase change
• Thermal mechanical analysis (TMA)

  Analysis of the mechanical response of a material as a function of temperature. Used primarily for determination of viscoelastic properties of polymers.

Mechanical

• Tensile (Room temp and elevated temperature)
• Flexural Strength
• Compressive Strength
• Fatigue (static and cyclic)
• Shear strength
• Hardness

Electrical

• Dielectric constant

  Determination of a material’s ability to store energy (up to 1450 °C at microwave frequencies)
• Dissipation Factor

  A measure of the dissipation of electromagnetic energy in a material (up to 1450 °C at microwave frequencies)