Engineering Mechanics Corporation
| The new lab finished construction in June 2007. The new lab gives Emc2 even more experimental capabilities. Examples of the types of testing that can now be performed onsite include:
|
The test specimen in the fiber wrapping specimen preparation fixture. The fiber test specimen preparation fixture requires fibers to be wrapped around two suitable diameter spools, where a number of fiber wraps loop around the spools. 
The cooling of the specimens used a Styrofoam box surrounding the specimen. The figure shows the specimen in the flywheel machine. Thermocouples were located on the upper loading fixture, as well as being snuggly fit between the fiber and the spool piece. In the dynamic testing, the front half of the cooling box is removed so it is not damaged. This front half of the cooling box contains a fan and dry ice chamber – the fan was later replaced by compressed air from a shop-air line that was valved down to give proper circulation. |
From the flywheel test machine, the data was obtained at very high sampling rates of 100,000 samples per second. The above figure shows a typical output of the data collected, where it was desired to obtain data over a revolution before and after the test to see the speed changes, as well as the optical grip pattern for direct readings, and the dynamic load readings.  The instrumentation consisted of a quartz load cell for dynamic readings, and an optical displacement grid to measure the velocity of the The wheel before, during, and after the dynamic loading event. The figure shows the displacement grid used for the optical scanning device. |
|
|
Lab Equipment
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|