• 250 KN servohydraulic load frame, Tension, Compression, Shear
• (Iosipescu, short-beam)
• Muzed-mode fracture 1600J instrumented drop tower

• Laboratory Brabender Mixer 50 CC.
  • PL2000 Plasti-Corder
  • 3-Piece Mixer
  • Roller Blades
  • 3-Zone Temperature Control System
• Battenfeld Microsystem 50 - Micro Injection Moulding Machine
  • Fully electrical production cell for production of micro-precision components under cleanroom conditions
  • UNILOG B4 controller Screw diameter 14 mm
• Modular Melt Flow Tester - Model 7024.000 - Method A and B (with Encoder)
• Rheometrics Dynamic Spectrometer - Model RDS2 - Using Orchestrator software
• TL0.01 Desktop Dip Coater
• RYOBI 9 In. Band Saw
• Thermo Scientific Thermolyne Furnace 76CI SSP 120V

• Fadal 4020 Vertical Machining Center
• DEA Swift A001 Coordinate Measurement Machine
• NextEngine 3D Scanner

Optical Biosensors & Bioelectronics Laboratory (TEB 18)

• Optical Bench (2 types) – including various optical breadboards and plates
• Micralyne biochip toolkit
• Optikon High-Speed Sensicam VGA cooled color digital CCD camera
• Tunable ArKr laser system
• Argon-Ion laser (457nm)
• He-Ne yellow laser (594nm)
• Infiniium oscilloscope (2GSa/s)
• Wavestar U spectrometer
• Broadband amplitude modulator (3 units)
• Electro-optical modulator and drivers (2 units)
• Acousto-optic deflector and driver
• Radiometer ION 450
• Linear and rotational precision stages (multiple)

Researchers also have access to NRC’s laser microfabrication facilities and technical personnel (London Ont) and Western Nanofabrication Facility (Equip. Listed: http://www.uwo.ca/fab/equipment/Index.html)

Geometric Modeling & Virtual Sculpting Laboratory (SEB 3025A)

• Immersion MicroScribe G2 hardware/software
• PHANTOM Omni haptic device
• VRMesh 3.5 Studio software
• Claytools for Rhino modeling software
• Rhino3D NURBS modeling software

Researchers also have access to Visualization and Virtual Reality Laboratory (TEB 206) where a Cyberware 3D RGB head & shoulder scanner and Fakespace Immersadesk R-2 virtual reality display are located.

• Two Cameca IMS-3f SIMS instruments equipped with Cs+ and O+ ion sources
• ION-TOF-SIMS IV equipped with Bi+, Cs+, O+ and C60+ ion sources
• Hitachi S-4500 field emission SEM with a Quartz XOne EDX system
• Kratos AXIS Ultra Spectrometer
• Renishaw Model 2000 Raman Spectrometer with Two wavelengths available: 633nm and 514nm
• Physical Electronics Model 660
• KLA Tencor P-10 Surface Profiler
• Park Systems XE-100
• Bruker IFS 55

Mechanical Testing

• materials characterization
• manufacturing design and development
• modelling
• process simulation
• field testing
• crash testing
• mechanical engineering
• design engineering
• beta testing
• pre-competitive research
• confidential research
• light weighting
• microscopy of materials
• micro-scale mechanisms

Specialized labs and equipment:

• Charpy Impact Tester, a large pendulum with a weight which fractures a specimen and measures the amount of energy absorbed by fracturing the specimen. This instrument is used to determine crash- and impact-resistance by characterizing the fracture toughness of material.
• Split Hopkinson Bar Testing Facility, which measures the high-strain rate behaviour of materials by firing a projectile against an incident bar, and triggering a stress wave that propagates through a specimen. Used to characterize the behaviour of materials for input into crash simulations and high strain rate sheet metal forming simulations.
• High-energy drop tower (approximately 80 kJ capacity) able to drop a 900-kilogram mass from a height of approximately nine metres, used to measure the impact resistance of a structure.
• Low-energy drop tower (approximately 8 kJ capacity).
• Optical strain measurement systems, which use high-resolution cameras and digital image correlation to measure how much a specimen has been deformed. This measurement system can be used to assess how much a material can be safely deformed without tearing, wrinkling or breaking. Both high-speed and low-speed optical strain measurement systems are available.
• Dual Photron SA4 high-speed cameras.
• Tension/compression universal testing machines with a load capacity from 50kN-600kN.
• Long-stroke (1.2 meters) tension/compression testing machine with a load capacity of 300kN.
• Pneumatic accelerator capable of firing projectiles with velocities up to 50 meters/second

• Custom torsion testing machine (with 300 and 2000 lb load cells, for up to 90 deg of specimen rotation)
• System 8000 data acquisition with Strain Smart software (8 channels)

• Equipment used in the blending or molding of composites for different auto parts:
  • 27mm Leistritz co-rotating twin screw extruded with side stuffer and two gravimetric feeders (k-Tron and Brabender
  • ThermoScientific Haake Rheocord torque rheometer with Rheocord 9000 mixing attachment
  • 50mm 30 L/D Davis-Standard Thematic single screw extruder
  • 55 tonne Arburg injection molding Machine with coinjection configuration
  • Battenfeld microinjection molding machine
  • Dual axis rotomolder
  • 48x24" Belovac vacuum thermoformer

• Equipment used for characterization:
  • 10kN Instron benchtop mechanical testing system with environmental oven.  Attachments for tensile, flexural, compression.
  • Dart impact tester
  • ARES parallel plate rheometer
  • Melt indexer
  • ROSAND capillary rheometer
  • SEM, TEM, stereo microscope
  • Zygo Newview 3000 light inferometer for metrology
  • Q200 differential scanning calorimeter from TA Instruments

• Processing Equipment:
  • 6 extrusion foaming lines
    • 2.5’’-3.5’’ tandem foam extruder with foam board system, sheet foam system, plank board processing, profiling foam axisymmetric cable foaming line, etc.
    • 2.5’’(44L/D) single-screw foaming extruder
    • 1.5’’-2.5’’ tandem foaming extruder
    • 0.75’’-1.5’’ tandem foaming extruder
    • 0.75’’ single-screw foaming extruder
  • 3 injection foam molding machines
    • 80 ton structural foam molding machine
    • 50 ton MuCell injection molding machine
    • 40 ton injection molding machine
  • 1 27mm twin-screw compounder
  • 1 EPP/EPS molding machine
  • 1 rotational molding machine
  • 2 compression molding machines
  • 5 batch foaming apparatuses
  • 1 batch mixer

• Characterization Equipment:
  • 3 foaming simulation systems with visualization
  • 1 hot-stage optical microscope with image processing
  • 1 rotational stress rheometer
  • 1 rotational strain rheometer (ARES)
  • 1 on-line slit rheological die 2 melt flow indexers
  • 1 high-pressure differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and 2 regular DSC
  • 2 magnetic suspension balances (MSB)
  • 1 PVT measurement system
  • 1 scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
  • 1 thermal mechanical analyzer
  • 1 dynamic mechanical analyzer
  • 1 3D Modeler rapid prototyping machine
  • 1 microsopy image processing system
  • 1 surface roughness tester
  • 1 thermal gravimetric analyzer 3 pycnometers
  • 1 density measuring device
  • 1 Instron micro-mechanical tester
  • 1 Instron drop weight impact test machine