Our Materials Laboratories support industrial gear research and consultancy projects in three main areas:

• metallography and evaluation of material properties
• heat treatment and grinding quality control
• characterisation and analysis of gear failures

Our facilities

We use a range of up-to-date laboratory equipment to study the metallurgy of gears and the factors affecting fatigue performance. Our facilities include:

• sectioning, mounting and polishing equipment for metallographic sample preparation
• digital imaging and image analysis software connected to stereo and reflected light microscopes
• micro- and macro-Vickers testers for hardness and case depth measurement
• X-ray diffraction equipment for measurement of residual stress and retained austenite
• Barkhausen Noise analysis for detection of grinding burn
• a scanning electron microscope with EDS capability for fractography and qualitative chemical analysis
• eddy current crack detection equipment