The Composite Materials and Engineering Center is equipped to conduct research ranging from composite materials development through structural testing. The 28,000 ft2 facility houses equipment for furnish generation; sorting, drying, blending and forming; consolidation; physical and chemical property analyses; materials and structural testing; nondestructive evaluation; and computer-based modeling and analysis. A partial list of equipment and capabilities follows:
Composite Manufacturing
- Complete wood-plastic composite extrusion line with industry production rate capabilities
- 35mm, 55mm, and 86mm conical twin screw extruders
- 25mm single screw extruder
- 18mm parallel twin screw extruder
- Pellet mill
- Multilayer film coextrusion line
- Pultrusion system
- 3 profile cooling units
- 50-ton injection molding machine
- HPL/LPL resin impregnator and development system
- Computer-controlled hydraulic presses with oil heated platens (4 by 8 ft., 3 by 3 ft.)
- Celcum Extrudate Swell and Temperature Monitoring System with visible light micrometer and pyrometer temperature monitor
- Fiber wet spinning line
Sorting, Drying, Blending, and Forming
- Strand, particle and fiber dryers
- Mechanical and aerodynamic particle sorters
- Large-scale ribbon blender with load-scaled receiver tank
- Drum blender w/ air atomized resin sprayer
- Adhesive roll coater
- Electrostatic and mechanical formers
- Steam tube dryer w/ bag dump station and auger feed system
- Rotary dryer
Furnish Generation
- chipper; hammermill
- ring, drum and disc flakers
- dual disc refiner (with steam conditioner)
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Thermal, Rheological and Molecular Weight Analysis
- Simultaneous differential scanning calorimeter and thermal gravimetric analyzer with attached FTIR gas stream analysis
- Dynamic mechanical analyzer
- Submersion dynamic mechanical analyzer
- Differential scanning calorimeter with temperature modulation
- Dynamic contact angle analyzer
- Parallel plate rheometer
- Capillary rheometer
- Torque rheometer
Spectroscopic and Microscopic Analysis
- Atomic force microscope (Veeco Multimode Picoforce) with high temperature and solution imaging kits
- RMC cryo ultra microtome equipped with diamond knife
- FTIR spectroscopy with mid- and near-IR capability
- FTIR microscope and ATR
- Viscotek Complete Tetra Detector Platform and GPCmaxTM front-end chromatography setup
- Transmission light microscopes with cross polarizers and heating and freezing stage
- NMR spectroscopy
- SEM with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy
- X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
- Stereoscope with color ccd camera and image analysis
- High resolution monochrome digital camera
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- Servo-hydraulic actuators with 10, 22, 56, 100, and 220 kip capacities
- Servo-hydraulic axial test frames with 22 and 55 kip capacities with computer control and data acquisition
- 200 kip tension-testing machine
- 500 kip reaction floor with two 7.5-ton overhead cranes
- 120 constant-load test frames (for time dependent behavior)
- 2 accelerated weathering chambers: Xenon arc and fluorescent UV with water spray
- 5 controlled environment conditioning rooms (15’ x 23’)
- 1 controlled environment conditioning chamber (64 c.f.) -50F to 300F temperature range 20% to 95% relative humidity range. Programmable cyclic controls.
- 2, 20, 25 and 30 kip electromechanical universal test machines with computer control and data acquisition (smaller load cells available)
- Dynisco Basic Pendulum Impact Tester
- Variable Incidence Tribometer
Nondestructive Evaluation
- Ultrasonic pulser-receiver
- Piezoelectric transducers
- Transverse vibration E-computer
- Stress wave timers
- Ground penetrating radar
- Infrared thermal imaging system
- X-ray vertical density profiler
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