All-State’s New Materials Test Lab
In the late third quarter of 2014 All-State Industries installed a couple pieces of test equipment in the West Des Moines facility. This will allow All-State Industries to test numerous material properties in-house versus sending them out to be tested. Some of the benefits of having in-house test equipment are:
- Research and development of new materials – this will be especially useful in our urethane division.
- Ability to do lot testing on batches of incoming raw materials or ongoing testing of production material/poured urethane.
- Test customer’s current part material or competitor’s material to determine properties.
- Test can to be performed in a few days, not weeks.
- Qualify alternate materials.
The two pieces of equipment which we purchased were:
Instron Tensile Tester – Model 3369
This machine is capable of preforming a multitude of tension, compression and shear tests on materials. Some of the more common tests are:
- Tensile strength – The material sample is stretched until it breaks.
- Tear strength – The material sample is nicked and then stretched until it breaks.
- Compression deflection – The material is compressed to a certain percentage of its original size.
- Flex modulus – Stiffness of the material.
These tests are all performed on the Instron using different fixtures that are attached to the frame. A computer is hooked up to the machine so any test can be recorded/saved and printed if needed.
Taber Abrator – Model 5135
This machine is used to measure the abrasion resistance of a material based on an abrasive wheel. The wheel comes into contact with the material sample. This machine will allow ASI to compare the abrasion resistance of different materials.
The wheel is pre-loaded so the same weight is applied to all samples. The samples can be run for a set amount of cycles 100, 500, 1000 and 2500. The sample is weighed before and after the test. The difference in weight is how much the material was abraded away. The lower the milligram loss (Mg) in weight, the better the abrasion resistance of the material.
This test equipment is available for any division of All-State Industries.
