We are experts in mechanical testing, specializing in fracture mechanics, fatigue, fatigue crack growth, and formability testing.  We have extensive experience in implementing, improving, and automating standardized mechanical tests to meet customer and industry standards and specifications.These tests include:

• automated fracture toughness tests (plane strain and plane stress)
• automated fatigue crack growth tests using advanced features of Fracture Technology Associates software
• automated tensile tests

We are also highly experienced experimentalists. We have over forty years of experience in conceptualizing, designing, planning, and executing hundreds of experimental test programs to understand the response of materials and mechanical systems to stimuli such as force, heat, vibration, and displacement at various rates of application.  Experimental planning is often preceded by finite element modeling to understand experimental parameters and interactions.  Experiments include specialized tests such as

• fatigue testing of automotive and industrial subcomponents
• low-load and high-load transfer bolted joint tests
• spectrum fatigue crack growth
• constitutive model parameter determination in sheet metals using Digital Image Correlation to measure r-value, Iosipescu shear stress-strain relationship, and plane-strain tensile behavior.
• experimental stress analysis of commercial truck wheels using strain gages and thermoelastic stress analysis.
• 3-D Digital Image Correlation for stress analysis of specimens and components.
• residual stress determination by wide notch and slitting methods.
• high strain rate tensile
• elevated temperature tensile
• vibration
• buckling
• sheet formability tests:
  • r-value
  • n-value
  • equal biaxial stretch via hydraulic bulge
  • constrained plane stress tensile using digital image correlation
  • Iosipescu shear