Today there are over 3,500 different grades of steel. In fact, steel is one of the world’s most innovative and essential materials for manufacturing, building and construction. 

All objects—from toothbrushes to umbrellas to the components of a space shuttle—experience forces throughout their lifecycles. In performing everyday actions like tying a shoelace or ripping open a package, we all exert forces without even realizing it.

Anyone involved in medical device manufacturing knows that their industry is highly regulated. Almost every medical device manufacturer or pharmaceutical supplier uses materials testing systems in their quality control and research laboratories or outsources their testing to approved third-party laboratories. 

We tend to take cardboard packaging for granted, despite its increasing importance in our everyday lives. With the advent of online shopping, more and more of our purchases are shipped to our homes inside cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes.

Component manufacturers across the manufacturing spectrum—such as in automotive, aerospace, electronics, medical, energy and other fields—must ensure that their parts meet engineers’ specifications.

What is tension? The application of tension involves stretching or pulling a piece of material. Tensile tests are conducted to help specify materials for engineering applications.

It is a cold hard fact that steel production in Europe can hardly be made economically viable unless manufacturing facilities use the very latest equipment and technology. And there is no alternative to operating 24/7.

Whether you work in a quality control laboratory at a major automotive manufacturer or are performing research at a university, it is common to encounter a universal testing machine that was manufactured before the 21st century.

Fatigue is a failure mechanism caused by repeated cyclic loading that leads to cumulative damage within a material, and ultimately catastrophic failure. “Between 80% to 90% of all mechanical service failures can be attributed to Fatigue,” according to the American Society of Metals – Metals Handbook 1975 & 2008.

Materials testing in metal additive manufacturing (AM) involves characterization of raw materials and evaluation of finished parts. The raw materials used in metal AM processes include powders, filaments and sheets.