Materials Testing/Evaluation

Verifying design/drawing requirement, strength evaluation, heat treat condition, correct welding applications, damage assessment, wear application, machining requirements and many other properties can be determined by Hardness Testing. From a 10 mm diameter Tungsten Carbide ball indenter to a small diamond micro indenter and many other in between, “in house” or in the field, Team can perform the required testing to meet your hardness testing requirements.

Verifying the actual structure of a material can indicate whether a material was manufactured correctly, if it meets the designed intent, if it has suffered damage or many other attributes. We will polish the material surface to a mirror finish and if required use a suitable etchant to reveal the structure/grain of the material for metallurgical evaluation.  Whether the needs are macroscopic or microscopic Team has the materials and equipment to process and evaluate your material’s physical structure. With our wide array of stereoscopes and microscopes we will be able to provide photographic imaging of the structures, allowing you to see the particular macro or micro features in question and have permanent record of the evaluated surface(s). Besides optical, Team can also employ Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) with Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) analyses when needed.

With Team’s fully equipped machine shop and Mechanical Testing equipment we will be able to evaluate your material’s destructive properties to determine if it meets the requirements for the specific application. Mechanical testing includes bend testing, tensile testing, Charpy-impact testing or other mechanical properties evaluation.

When destructive testing and evaluation is not acceptable Team can utilize Replication to take a “micro fingerprint” of the material surface for evaluation. Whether replicated “as is” (such as machined surface to evaluate for cracks), etched or polished and etched, Team has the equipment and expertise to perform Replication “in house” or in the field (if the unit can’t be shipped) for surface/metallurgical evaluation without destroying the material.  After the replica is made, it is evaluated in our lab for desired features (processing defects, microstructure, grain size, damage assessment, et. al.) and photographic imaging can be made for permanent records.

When non-destructive material verification on components is critical the PMI lightweight portable handheld unit can quickly and accurately identify and/or give elemental analysis of a material without causing damage. By utilizing X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) technology a material can be analyzed in seconds. PMI can analyze/verify raw material, finished products, welded joints or “in service” units to verify the compositional integrity of your products/systems.

Learning by failure can be a difficult process to go through, however in engineering this has been an integral step in many of the greatest advances and achievements in the discipline. When this unfortunate situation arises Team utilizes its vast technical experience and wide array of non-destructive and destructive methods to evaluate not only the failure proper, but the system as a whole to help determine why a part/system failed and to prevent or minimize the likelihood of particular failures from occurring in the future.