Západočeská univerzita

The laboratory of material-technological modelling houses preparation machines, measuring instruments and equipment, and an in-house-designed thermomechanical simulator. The simulator enables real specimens of materials to be worked using thermal and deformation schedules identical to real-world process sequences. Its advantages include precision process monitoring and control and a highly-uniform temperature field throughout the specimen. The simulator was designed and built to cope with simulations of even highly complex and rapid manufacturing processes or entire technology chains. The machine is used for developing new processes, for optimizing microstructures and mechanical properties, as well as for sizing newly-designed equipment for forming and thermomechanical treatment.

The forming laboratory houses equipment for both hot forming and cold forming. This includes an isostatic press, a deep-drawing press, a forward-extrusion press, a crank press, a universal hydraulic press, a 1:10 scaled down version of an industrial press with a sinusoidal drive, a high-speed press featuring a proportional valve, and an air hammer. The equipment for heating and heat treating consists of six furnaces which offer temperature profile control and treatment in hot baths. Induction heating equipment is available as well. A material handling robot is provided for research tasks.

The laboratory of plastometry is used for measuring plastic properties of materials within an interval from the ambient temperature to 2500 °C under conditions ranging from quasi-static states to rapid deformation at rates of 100 s-1. Its equipment comprises a torsion plastometer, a drop weight testing machine, a pendulum plastometer with a mechanical link for deformation recording and a rapid tension-compression servohydraulic plastometer.

The metallographic laboratory houses equipment for macroscopic examination, optical, laser confocal, as well as scanning electron microscopy of materials, specimen preparation, and other materials characterization techniques, a chemical composition analyzer, hardness and microhardness testers, and other devices.

- 2D and 3D surface analysis of samples up to 10 kg and 100 x 100 x 80 mm (L x D x H)

- Magnification: 120x - 1400x

- Resolution in X-Y plane: 0-12 μm

- Motion resultion in Z direction: 0-1 μm

- Maximum height difference in one image: 1 cm

- 408nm laser source and halogen lamp and active nativibration table

Suitable for: 

- Microstructure, fractography and failure analysis

- Metals and non-metallic materials (conductivity of the sample is not required), organic-inorganic mixtures, clay, foams, lubricants, ...

- Non-contact roughness measurement

- Preise measurements and analysis in 3D

¨- Dimension and shape control of very small objects

- A high vacuummicroscope with tungsten heated filament Equipped with following detectors: SE, BSE, EDS (BRUKER QUANTAX)

- Resolution: 3 nm at 30 kV and 8 nm at 3 kV

- Accelerating Voltage: 200 V to 30 kV

- Chamber diameter: 160 mm

- Maximum Specimen Height: 36 mm

- Manual movement of Z axis

Suitable for:

- Detailed microstructure and fracture surface analysis

- Local chemical composition determination

- Metals and other conductive materials (at least conductive coating of the sample is required)

- Loading range 0,3 - 30 kg (HV 0,3 - HV 30)

- Obejctive 10x

- Manual stage movement and diagonals measurement

- Automatic conversion of diagonals into hardness values

- Vickers indenter

Programmable saw with manual and automatic modes of operation Enables cutting of various material types with minimal deformation 1 micron sample positioning allows for precise sectioning of specimen Parallel multi-sectioning of very thin foils is enabled, as well as sectioning of resign mounted samples Wide choice of cutting parameters suitable for various materisls:

* User selectable feed rate 1,2 - 19 mm/min 

* User selectable blade speed 200 - 5000 rpm 

* MAximum sample size: 150 x 50 x 13 mm or 70 mm diameter

Advanced, electro-hydraulic, programmable single cylinder mounting press For high quality mounting of samples into 30 mm diameter resign cylinders.

Variable mounting conditions to suit various materials:

- Pressure 50 - 350 bar, in steps by 25 bar

- Heating temperature 80 - 150°C

- Heating time 1-15 min