Your one-stop-shop
The Materials Research Cluster has core competences over the full supply chain: from production to application. The Materials Research Cluster partners provide support and advice from small-scale lab trials to industrial implementation, to component durability testing.
- Metal process technology & batch production
- Flexible production of tailor-made alloys in small batches by vacuum or air melting & casting, computer controlled sheet and plate rolling & cooling and multipurpose annealing
- Process optimisation using unique pilot continuous hot rolling mill
- Cooling & heating technology
- Alloys and coating development
- Determine optimal process window for alloy processing
- Fine-tune annealing cycles
- Formulate coatings with enhanced properties
- High-throughput research platforms
- Quick screening of formulations, depositions or coatings
- Speeding up your discovery research with a factor >>10
- In-depth microstructural characterisation
- Long standing expertise in metallographic preparation, using different embedding materials, polishing agents and etching techniques, followed by grain size determination and multi-phase fraction quantification
- Advanced physical and mechanical material characterisation ranging from small scale standardised tests to heavy gauge samples and more complex combined analysis set-up
- From virtual engineering to in-use guidelines
- Design and process optimisation through numerical simulation, validated by real life testing
- Technical assistance and recommendations for forming, cutting, punching, welding, adhesive bonding, galvanising, painting, enamelling, etc.
- Predictive models
- Small to large scale testing
- Unique range of equipment for metal processing, materials testing, materials characterisation, welding & joining, etc.
- Standard as well as customised test set-ups for large component testing
- Dedicated hydrogen lab to study hydrogen behaviour in metals
- Durability of materials and structures
- Expertise in the fields of wear, creep, fatigue, corrosion and coupled phenomena
- Failure analysis of materials and components