Keighley Laboratories has invested around GBP100,000 in upgrading its laboratory test house, enabling it to work to the requirements of the aviation, gas-turbine and allied industries.
This is part of a wholesale site-modernisation process, which will also see the development of new buildings and facilities, enabling the company to develop its sub-contract heat-treatment and metallurgical solutions.
The core of this initial investment phase has seen the installation of equipment that enables manual to semi-automated metallographic sample preparation for handling the latest generation of superalloys, and powerful metallurgical microscopes for examining the microstructure of specimens, as well as digital image capture and analysis.
This laboratory resource will enable the specialised evaluation of the effect of the latest drilling and machining techniques on high-grade components, such as advanced turbine blades used in power plants and jet engines.
Other capital investments include a CNC lathe for manufacturing sample pieces, an X-ray fluorescence analyser, a non-destructive digital ferrite meter and complete refurbishment of the test house.
Its metallography service enables examination of the microstructure of metals and alloys, so as to determine characteristics such as grain structure, inclusions, cleanliness and weld quality.
With aggressive non-traditional machining techniques now being used on superalloys, such as electrolytic STEM drilling, electrical discharge (EDM), electro-chemical (ECM) and laser machining, Keighley Labs' latest equipment allows observations of re-melt layers, heat-affected zones, intergranular attack, re-hardened layers and other possible irregularities, as part of FAI (first article inspection) and other routine QA checks.
Precision cutting, grinding and polishing equipment will improve surface preparation of samples, while automatic mounting presses will enable optimum edge retention of specimens.
A linear precision machine, with built-in micrometer, will cut virtually any material without sample deformation, allowing the laboratory to isolate a cross-section of a single STEM-drilled hole.
A new hot-compression automatic mounting press or vacuum-assisted cold press then embeds samples in phenolic resin, before they are finished down to 0.1um on a series of electric grinder-polishers, fitted with diamond planing discs or polishing media.
Macro examination to 40x magnification and micro examination to 1,000x can then be carried out using advanced Meiji Techno metallurgical microscopes.
A new zoom stereo microscope is used for viewing and comparing specimens in three dimensions, as an aid to visual examination; while an inverted metallurgical microscope offers crisp, high-resolution images up to 1,000x, with a built-in photo port providing for image capture and downloading to a PC.
Finally, proprietary software facilitates live measurement functions and online image analysis for reporting purposes.
