Equipment & Resources
MPI has Centers in metal casting; thermal processing; imaging and sensing; and recovery and recycling of metals. The Institute is supported by over 90 corporate partners, as well as funding from private foundations and the federal government. During the last decade MPI has developed into one of the nation's premiere research centers dedicated to metal processing.
MPI is staffed with a highly qualified group of research scientists and post-doctoral fellows. It is fully equipped with melting furnaces, including electrical and induction furnaces, heat-treating furnaces, rotary degassers, an Alscan unit, a reduced pressure testing unit, a spectrograph, and optical and scanning electron microscopes equipped with energy dispersive x-ray analysis capabilities and image analysis capabilities. In addition, MPI has all the necessary mechanical testing equipment including Universal testing machines with temperature chambers, fatigue testing machines, as well as impact, toughness, hardness and micro hardness measuring equipment.
Casting and Heat Treating Lab
| Equipment Type | Applications | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
Induction furnace | Melting | 1 |
Table top high frequency induction furnace | Melting and heating | 1 |
Electrical resistance furnace | Melting and heat treating | 2 of diffrent capacities |
Vacuum melting furnace | Melting under high vacuum | 1 |
Environment control unit | Control environment of melt (gas protection) | 1 |
Box furnaces | Heat treatment and melting | 10 of different sizes and temperature limits |
Tubular furnaces | Surface tension measurement, heat treatment and melting | 2 |
Fluidized bed furnace | Heat treatment | 3 |
Forced air circulation air resistance furnace | General heating | 1 |
Continuous rheoconversion process unit | Semi-solid processing | 1 Prototype |
Rotating impeller degasser | Degass melt | 2 |
N-Tec MetalHealth Centre | Measuring fluidity, hot tearing, shrinkage, coarse inclusions | 1 |
Alscan | Measure hydrogen content in the melt | 1 |
AluDelta | Thermal analysis | 1 |
Mold vibration unit | Casting metal in vibrating melt | 1 |
Ultrasonic vibration unit | Vibrate liquid metal | 1 |
Data acquisition units | Recording temperature, load, displacement, etc. |
2 units with16 channels |
Dendrite coherency unit | Determine dendrite coherency temperature | 1 |
Hot tear test unit | Measuring hot tearing tendency of alloys | 2 |
Spectrograph/Spectromax | Determine chemical composition of alloy | 2 |
Jominy quench set up | Jominy end quench test to determine quench sensitivity of the alloy | 1 |
Reduced pressure tester | Measuring melt quality (gas and inclusions) | 1 |
Permanent mold for casting standard tensile specimens | Casting standard tensile specimens | 5 |
Chemical analysis sampling mold | Casting chemical analysis sample | 4 |
Hydrogen analysis sample mod | Casting sample for H analysis | 1 |
Ingot mold | Casting ingot | 3 |
Ring mold | Test hot tearing | 1 |
Molding equipment for small sand castings | Preparing sand molds | 1 set |
Molds for various testing samples | Casting testing samples various shapes and sizes | many |
Melting and casting gadgets and accessories | For melting and casting |
Sample Preparation Lab
| Equipment Type | Applications | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
Saw | Cutting of samples, ingots |
1 horizontal saw |
Grinding and polishing wheel | Prepare sample for optical and scanning electron microscopic analysis |
13 grinding wheels |
Mounting unit | Mount samples for microscopic analysis |
1 semi-automatic |
Electropolisher/Buehler | Polishing and deep etching | 1 |
Ultrasonic cleaner | Clean polished surface | 1 |
Twin jet electropolisher | Prepare TEM foil | 1 |
Vacuum evaporator/Varian-Eastern Scientific | Coat samples for microscopic analysis | 1 |
Sputter Coater/Electron Microscopy Sciences | Coat samples for microscopic analysis | 1 |
Thermal Analysis Lab
| Equipment Type | Applications | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
Differential scanning calorimeter/ DSC7-Perkin Elmer | Qualitative thermal analysis | 1 |
Differential thermal analyzer/DTA7-Perkin Elmer | Thermal analysis | 1 |
Thermogravimetry (TGA)/TG131-Cahn | Determination of endotherms/exotherms and weight loss on heating or cooling | 1 |
Microscopic Analysis Lab
| Equipment Type | Applications | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
Optical microscopes with image analyzer (Nikon, Leitz) | Microscopic analysis | 8 |
Stereomicroscopes | 3-dimensional microscopic analysis | 1 |
Scanning electron microscope (JSM-840-JEOL & 7000F) | Microscopic analysis | 1 |
Transmission electron microscope (JEM-100CXII) | Microscopic analysis | 1 |
Metal Analyzer/SPECTRO | Precise metal composition analysis | 1 |
Mechanical Testing Lab
| Equipment Type | Applications | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
Universal Instron testing machine (8502, 5500R, 8511, 4201) | Tensile, compression, flexural, fatigue test | 4 |
Hardness tester | Measure hardness (Rockwell and Brinell) | 3 |
Microhardness tester (Shimadzu and Buehler) | Microhardness tester | 3 |
R.R. Moore Rotating Beam Fatigue Tester | Measuring fatigue properties of casting alloys | 4 |
Impact tester | Measuring Charpy and Izod impact properties | 1 |
Software Simulation Lab
| Software Package | Applications | Licenses |
|---|---|---|
ProCast | Solidification simulation | 1 license |
MagmaSoft | Solidification simulation | 1 license |
EKK | Metal casting process simulation | 1 license |
Themocalc | Phase diagram and thermodynamic simulation | 1 license |
Pandat | Phase diagram and thermodynamic simulation | 1 license |
JMatPro | Phase diagram, thermodynamic simulation, and thermo-physical properties simulation | 1 license |
COMSOL | Computational simulation of engineering problems | Multiple licenses |
Gambit | CAD design | Multiple licenses |
Miscellaneous Lab
| Equipment Type | Applications | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
X-ray diffraction | Phase analysis, measure residual stress and lattice parameters | 1 |
High temperature rheometer | Measure viscosity of the melt in liquid and semi-solid metals/alloys | 1 |
Last modified: February 07, 2012 14:46:44