Structures and Materials Evaluation
Investigating and Solving Customer Problems with State-of-the-Art Experimental Techniques
UDRI evaluates new and current materials and structures in real world environments (or situations). We also develop unique test protocols and fabricate specialized test fixtures and systems to evaluate structure and component performance properly. This includes high frequency fatigue, fatigue of bonded components, fasteners, and material coupons, mechanical testing of coupons, and high rate testing of polymers, composites and metals. Nearly all of our work is to determine mechanical behavior as a function of strain rate, fatigue cycles, temperature, etc.
Capabilities
- Structures and materials characterization
- Fatigue testing of materials and components
- High-rate testing of materials and components
- Structural test methods and equipment design
- Electro-mechanical test instrumentation
- Full field strain and displacement measurement with digital image correlation
- Experimental stress analysis
- Structural test methods development
- Failure analysis
- Polymer creep
- Corrosion
- Probabilistic risk assessment
Our researchers evaluate structural materials using standard tests (tensile, compression, fatigue, bearing, shear) and under a variety of in-service conditions (high rate, environmentally assisted crack growth, multi-axis loading, tension-torsion, and fracture). Tested items range from test coupons to aircraft/engine/automotive components, compressors, wind turbines, and artificial limbs.