ZwickRoell equips new testing laboratory at AIM Norway
AIM Norway supplies maintenance, repair- and modification services for aircraft, helicopters, components and field equipment to the Norwegian Armed Forces and other military and civilian organizations. The core competence of AIM Norway are avionics, components and other advanced products and processes, among others metal plating and coating. Moreover, AIM Norway works on super alloys such as titanium, stainless steel, high strength steel and aluminum.
AIM Norway built up a new testing laboratory for mechanical hydrogen embrittlement evaluation of plating and coating processes that can cause hydrogen embrittlement in steels. Hydrogen Embrittlement is responsible for a surprising number of delayed failures and problems with steels, especially if they undergo secondary processing operations such as plating.
ZIn order to be able to carry out the necessary material tests, AIM Norway invested in a new Kappa 50 DS creep testing machine from ZwickRoell. AIM Norway uses the Kappa 50 DS (maximum force of 50 kN) mainly for evaluation of hydrogen embrittlement according to ASTM F519 (Sustained Load Test) and ASTM F1624 (Incremental Step Loading Technique) with notched samples - four samples loaded in series per test. The Kappa 50 DS is equipped with an all-round safety shield combined with electrical drive system interlock to ensure safety of operators.
Furthermore, the highly flexible Kappa 50 DS creep testing machine with its two parallel lead screws enables AIM Norway to perform tensile tests on metallic materials according to ASTM E8. And, AIM Norway uses the Kappa 50 DS creep testing machine also to determine the degree of adhesion or cohesion strength of thermal spray coatings according to ASTM C633.
Mr. Gunnar Iversen, working as a process engineer at AIM Norway, states that the new Kappa 50 DS creep testing machine together with its equipment and all the testXpert II test programs provides significant competitive advantages and helps AIM Norway to save production costs and time.