Instron’s pneumatic side action grips feature a versatile design for testing various battery materials and components. They are most commonly used for testing foil, separator film, and various welds used in the production of batteries. Featuring adjustable clamping pressure and quick-change jaw faces, these grips can be adapted to test a wide variety of specimens. 

Instron’s advanced screw side action grips offer similar versatility to pneumatics, without the use of an adjustable or constant gripping pressure. These grips are an ideal solution when testing components and welds due to their increased jaw face separation and allowable offset.

This custom-made prismatic battery weld test fixture features a cantilever style hook and alignment fixture for testing the cumulative welding of anode/cathode tabs to their respective current collector. It is also paired with a crosshead extension to provide more space behind and around the specimen/alignment device when using a single column frame. By using the alignment fixture, an operator can ensure the prismatic cell is properly gripped in an upper grip. Fixturing can also be easily swapped out to accommodate different sized prismatic cells and/or welds. This is done by replacing the specimen alignment fixture and lower hook, all of which can be acquired separately, as needed.

The pneumatic 90° peel fixture was developed specifically for electrode adhesion testing. This peel fixture is designed to help an operator align and clamp down a specimen quickly and consistently while ensuring that a 90° angle can be maintained from start to finish. With its improved clamping and specimen alignment aides, the fixture provides greater repeatability, throughput, and reduced operator involvement over a standard manually-controlled and set up peel fixture. All of this makes the pneumatic version a preferred option over a standard 90° peel fixture with manual adjustments and clamping.

The 90° peel test fixture consists of a bearing-mounted sled that is linked to the testing machine’s crosshead by a cable and pulley system. This fixture has a T-slotted sled that allows the substrate clamps, which secure the substrate to the sled, to adjust to a variety of substrate widths.

Designed for ease of specimen preparation and throughput, this Tack Test Fixture is optimized for testing the adhesion strength of electrodes to their current collector. The contact area of the tack can be designed to various sizes as needed. It is designed with 5 specimen locations and able to perform 5 consecutive tests without the need for additional specimen preparation in between each test. The upper and lower fixtures consist of lightweight, separate parts to simplify installation and cleaning. The upper fixture is also spherically seated and lockable to ensure parallelism between both fixtures during testing.

Instron offers a wide range of flex / bend fixtures for specimens of only a few millimeters in length up to 600 mm and for loads of a few newtons to several kilonewtons. 3 and 4-point bend tests of raw materials, battery materials, and cells are all possible using standard and custom fixtures that can incorporate displacement sensors and be mounted on all frame types.

This digital version of a LVDT provides a repeatable and highly accurate method of displacement measurement for a variety of tests on battery materials, components and assemblies. The sensor is easy to set up, is automatically recognized by the software and can provide a high precision and localized displacement or strain measurement. It can be used in tension, compression and flex tests and many other specialized tests such as to measure cell expansion during charging/discharging cycles.

Instron’s AVE2 video extensometer provides a repeatable and highly accurate method of strain measurement for various tests on battery materials and/or components. This fully-integrated extensometer easily adapts to the normal fluctuations of environmental conditions in your lab, including thermal and lighting variations. In addition to ambient testing, it can be used with temperature chambers and fluid baths.

Designed in accordance with EN 14477 for puncture testing of separator film and other flexible materials, this fixture provides a lower clamping mechanism paired with an upper probe of either 0.8 mm or 1 mm in diameter. The lower fixturing includes guidance for the probe and the means to hold a specimen taut for each test.

Materials, cells, modules, and packs used in EV batteries can perform differently under varying environmental conditions. A testing chamber integrated with the Instron test frame allows specimens to be tested under a variety of environmental conditions while under load.

Instron’s coefficient of friction fixture measures the static and kinetic coefficient of friction of plastic film and sheeting. This fixture is commonly used to measure the friction forces of separator film material used in batteries.

This thermocouple Signal Conditioner has been modified with wiring to Instron’s sensor conditioner module to allow for a live data capture and display of temperature for testing. It comes factory programed to work with type J and K thermocouples and configured for -100° to 350° C, but can be changed by the user depending on the measurements needed.

This hydrogen embrittlement bath allows for simulation of the environmental conditions required for hydrogen embrittlement of metals used in the production of lithium-ion batteries. This bath is rated to a maximum load of 5 kN to handle the necessary loads of metal materials during cycling and testing, and is paired with custom grips that can withstand the environment for prolonged periods of time. The bath has a pneumatic lifting and lowering mechanism that allows for ease of use, increases productivity, and minimizes the risk of spilling fluid on the surrounding test equipment. Most importantly, the bath was specifically designed for compatibility with video extensometers, allowing for unparalleled accuracy in strain measurement.

A standard USB barcode and QR code scanner allows you to seamlessly enter sample or specimen information into Bluehill^® Universal testing software. Simply create a barcode or QR code, inclusive of the tab function, and information can be added in any text or number input fields.

Bluehill Central software is a laboratory management tool that enables centralized, remote management of Bluehill Universal software applications associated with multiple Instron test frames. The software allows you to remotely manage all Bluehill Universal users, test templates, results, file revision approvals, and audit trail data from multiple Instron systems.

Designed for clamping busbar and other battery components, this fixturing allows for adjustable sizing and clamping force for testing various welds used in the production of batteries.