Global testing company Exova has expanded its capabilities in the aerospace sector with a series of upgrades at its laboratories in Anaheim, California and Lancaster, UK.
In Anaheim, Exova is expanding its services in high temperature fatigue and creep testing. With the acquisition of eight new fatigue load frames, Exova will carry out proprietary testing of ceramic based composite materials at temperatures up to 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Testing will involve ceramic matrix composite (CMC) specimens to evaluate new materials for future use in aerospace and defence applications. Exova is one of the few businesses with capabilities to meet the technical demands of CMC testing.
The Lancaster laboratory has also made investments to increase its CMC fatigue and creep testing capabilities and capacity, installing 24 bespoke testing frames. Part of this investment also included digital image correlation that provides highly detailed videos of the strains produced in the various bespoke specimen designs during testing.
Stuart Abbs, Exova’s Managing Director, Aerospace, said: “Our new and highly specialised equipment in Anaheim and Lancaster boosts capacity and capability, which allows us to meet evolving customer needs and to develop partnerships across our customer base. Our work provides customers with valuable data to inform R&D programmes, as well as offering more sophisticated testing for existing materials.
“In combining both the Anaheim and Lancaster capabilities and capacities, along with our materials experts and leading test engineers, we are able to offer a truly global CMC testing capability to the key players in the civil and military aerospace markets.”
