Materials Teaching Laboratory

The laboratory is equipped to enable small groups of students to learn about key methods of materials testing and heat treatment. Using steel specimens, heat treatment can be used to induce changes in the microstructure that are detectable metallographically. The resulting changes in mechanical properties are examined using standard materials testing methods.

For mechanical testing, our equipment includes relatively small machines that can be operated on the first floor, allowing for convenient work in a single room with access to all essential laboratory facilities. To make this possible, we work with comparatively small specimens (tensile testing, for example, typically uses round specimens with a diameter of 6 mm; notched impact testing sometimes uses DVMK specimens instead of DVM specimens), which allow students to observe the key effects in their own experiments.

• Austenitizing in an annealing and hardening furnace
• Quenching in oil and water
• Tempering in a forced-air chamber furnace
• Hardness testing according to Brinell and Vickers
• Tensile testing
• Toughness testing via Charpy impact test
• Metallographic preparation
• Microstructure examination in brightfield and darkfield optical microscopy

• Hardness Tester WPM Leipzig, HPO 250
• Zwick/Roell Electromechanical Universal Testing Machine, Z020 TN
• Instron CEAST 9050 pendulum impact tester
• Metkon Metacut 251 cut-off grinder
• Metkon Ecopress 50 hot-embedding press
• Metkon Forcipol 2V + Forcimat grinding and polishing machine
• Zeiss Axiolab A1 metallographic microscope

The laboratory is located in Room 1.46 and is affiliated with the Physics and Materials research group.  If you have any questions, please contact Prof. Dr. Herbert Schmidt or Dr. Silvia Hacia.