Over the past 20 years, the importance of occupant protection in the development of automobiles has greatly increased. Tighter legal requirements and consumer protection programs have led to significant innovations in the area of active and passive safety. Passive safety is mainly focused on the development of methods and guidelines that reduce the severity of injuries caused by accidents.
Instron TestMaster automated testing systems are available for tensile, flexural, and compression testing of a wide range of materials and specimen sizes.
The Automotive Testing Solutions brochure is a 36-page, applications-focused, and standards-based brochure. Important standards such as ASTM D412, ISO 37, and ISO 11443 are covered in a detailed testing challenge and solution format. The brochure addresses the most prominent and widely-used standards in the materials testing for the automotive industry.
A wide range of new materials are being used to decrease the weight of vehicles and reduce emissions. Of these new materials continuous carbon fiber polymer composites offer great potential for producing lightweight structures, however, there are many barriers to their widespread adoption. Currently, the cost and process times of composites parts are significantly higher than those of traditional metal parts and they require new recycling techniques. Progress is being made with the development of lower cost carbon fibers and thermoplastic matrix materials that offer faster manufacturing processes and facilitate recycling.
The Automotive Testing Solutions brochure is a 36-page, applications-focused, and standards-based brochure. Important standards such as ASTM D412, ISO 37, and ISO 11443 are covered in a detailed testing challenge and solution format. The brochure addresses the most prominent and widely-used standards in the materials testing for the automotive industry.
The Automotive Testing Solutions brochure is a 36-page, applications-focused, and standards-based brochure. Important standards such as ASTM D412, ISO 37, and ISO 11443 are covered in a detailed testing challenge and solution format. The brochure addresses the most prominent and widely-used standards in the materials testing for the automotive industry.
Compression After Impact test (CAI) is used to define the damage resistance of composites after an Impact event. An impact on composite laminate panel may result in no visible external damage, but it may generate a dramatic reduction of compressive strength. The design of automotive parts using composite materials should consider the effects of impact on the material properties. These data can be obtained following dedicated standards (i.e. ASTM D7136M, ASTM D7136), using an Instron Drop Tower configured with CAI accessories.
With more than ten years of running tests over billions of cycles, ElectroPuls systems are the established materials testing machines using patented linear motor technology. With model capacities up to 20 kN, ElectroPuls systems offer slow-speed static testing and high-frequency dynamic fatigue testing with hundreds of hertz capability. The Linear-Torsion models feature a patented actuator for bi-axial tests on materials and components.
The Automotive Testing Solutions brochure is a 36-page, applications-focused, and standards-based brochure. Important standards such as ASTM D412, ISO 37, and ISO 11443 are covered in a detailed testing challenge and solution format. The brochure addresses the most prominent and widely-used standards in the materials testing for the automotive industry.
WaveMatrix is the industry’s market leading software suite for dynamic and fatigue testing that is trusted by scientists, engineers and quality managers worldwide. The latest version of the software builds upon the potential of its predecessors and introduces new features such as Test Review, Specimen & Test Inputs and Security. Developed to work seamlessly alongside the latest PC software and firmware, WaveMatrix3 will save time, enhance productivity, improve confidence in the results being produced and help to futureproof facilities needing to adapt to new technologies. Designed for customers, with the support of customers, WaveMatrix3 guarantees that when advancing the boundaries of material testing; the difference is measurable.
In the automotive sector, development in chassis and body of vehicles is driven by two main aspects, safety, and lightweighting. As the body is the first point of impact during a car crash, modern designs have incorporated features such as crumple zone to absorb most of the initial impact, reducing the force that will reach the passengers. With this in mind, it is essential to understand material behavior under high strain rate, especially during development cycles of metals, alloys, and composites that may be used in chassis or body design. On the other hand, lightweighting provides better fuel economy for the car, decreases component wear and hence provide a much more competitive product overall. Therefore, characterizing how material properties change under high strain rate is important in order to find the optimum design maximizing safety and lightweighting.
Sheet Metal High Strain Rate Testing
The Challenge
When considering the crashworthiness of components, testing in high strain rates is essential. As investigated by numerous research, mechanical properties of materials differ drastically under quasi-static conditions and high strain rates. Therefore, accurate data on strain rate dependence of material behavior will provide more realistic computer simulation and evaluation of crashworthiness of structures, whether it is during the development of new alloys or testing automotive components.
Our Solution
To meet the challenges of high strain rate testing, Instron has been the market leader in manufacturing high strain rate testing machines for over 20 years, advancing high strain rate research and testing capabilities on metals with suitable technologies. For testing metals and high-performance alloys, Instron offers a range of VHS systems that can perform tests that will be suited to your application up to a maximum test velocity of 25 m/s, which translates to testing conditions from quasi-static up to a strain rate of 1000/s. Instron also offers fast jaw or slack rod tensile gripping solutions to ensure gripping at test velocity and DIC integration that will provide non-contact strain measurement with the capacity for dedicated strain gauge channels.
8862 systems have been the industry choice for Low Cycle Fatigue (LCF) testing for decades and are now fully integrated with our latest controller platform. Instron® has developed this system specifically to address the challenges of reverse-stress Low Cycle Fatigue and Thermomechanical Fatigue (TMF) testing. The unique actuator technology utilizes an all-electric, backlash free, ball-screw drive eliminating the need for hydraulic infrastructure to support the machine.
The Automotive Testing Solutions brochure is a 36-page, applications-focused, and standards-based brochure. Important standards such as ASTM D412, ISO 37, and ISO 11443 are covered in a detailed testing challenge and solution format. The brochure addresses the most prominent and widely-used standards in the materials testing for the automotive industry.
Knowing the formability of metals is absolutely critical in the manufacture and development of automobiles, typical performance indicators for the formability properties are the plastic strain ratio (r-value) and strain hardening exponent (n-value). Bend testing is also vital in drawing conclusions about the forming behavior and the susceptibility to failure of metallic materials during the forming processes dominated by bending deformation but also during crash deformation.
Globally, there are increasing efforts to reduce the weight of automobiles, increasing fuel efficiency which aids in the reduction of emissions. Various grades of steel have been the predominant material used for manufacturing automobiles chassis' and body. A new generation of advanced high-strength steels (AHSS) are being developed and produced to maintain the automotive industry’s demand for steel.
Despite this, automotive manufacturers are now also working with aluminum producers to increase the percentage of aluminum used in the production of automobiles. Aluminum offers low density, excellent formability, corrosion resistance, and high strength.
