Product Innovation and Engineering LLC (PINE)

The automated miniature tensile testing system is a machine that has been developed in order to provide accurate tensile property data from a range of miniature dog-bone specimen samples.  The application of miniature specimens is particularly suited for high-value materials and localized data.  Some of the key characteristics of the machine are as follows:

• Autonomous operation using a cartridge-based system for preloading 24 miniature specimens.
• Minimal human capital needs and intervention which are limited to preloading the specimens and triggering the system.
• Full field of view digital image correlation (DIC) sampling for the entire gage length for stress/strain mapping.
• ​Small machine footprint (less than 2’ by 1’) and lightweight design for desktop installation and use.
• Rapid testing to conduct high throughput and accelerated material characterization and benchmarking.
• The ability to generate data including Yield tensile strength, Ultimate tensile strength, Youngs Modulus, Strain at Break, and Reduction in cross sectional area.
• Output load and image data for easy post processing to generate material properties
• Modular design to switch between different miniature specimen designs

Potential Applications:

• Gather bulk and localized material properties for metals and alloys made using any manufacturing process
• Assess and quantify process inconsistencies to recommend improvements
• Assess raw material inconsistencies between different vendors and batches
• Quantify heat treatment discrepancies 
• Research topics like weld strength, work hardening, multi-material performance
• Generate 100's (maybe 1000's) of data points for process mapping and materials certification
• Generate data to feed into analytical and numerical models
• Use minimal materials, time and labor to quantify precious and hazardous materials