Mechanical and hardness tests

Characterising mechanical properties and hardness is essential for designers of products, components or assemblies. 

The mechanical test provides essential information on the ultimate strength, yield strenght, strain  before failure, as well as stiffness. For many polymer materials, it is also possible to study the effect of the time factor on strain (creep) or on load (relaxation).

With our universal mechanical test machine, we perform standardised or specific tensile, compression, bending and peeling tests.

Some examples of mechanical tests :

• Tensile test on soldered assemblies
• Peeling test on glued assemblies
• Tensile test on metallic materials, polymers or composites
• Pure bending test on notched specimens
• Tensile test on elastomer straps

For metallic and non-metallic materials or coatings, we perform hardness measurements in three applied load ranges:

1. Low-load Vickers hardness test, as per standard ISO 6507-1, suitable mainly for solid materials
2. Vickers micro-hardness test, as per standard ISO 6507-1, suitable for characterising thin parts or relatively thick coatings
3. Instrumented nanoindentation test as per standards ISO 14577-1 and ISO 14577-4. This test is used to greatly reduce the interaction volume between the material and indenter. It is particularly suitable for characterising thin layers, of around one micron thick, or diffusion layers.