Customer
Our client, a market leader, is a producer and supplier of electricity in France and Europe for companies, local authorities and individuals.
Manufactured product
Metallic specimens
Metallic specimens to characterise materials in fatigue according to their surface condition
Objective
Repeatedly polishing metal specimens to assess the effect of polishing type on specimen strength.
Problematic issues
Our client wishes to carry out low cycle fatigue tests at very low strains on metal specimens. For this type of test, the influence of the surface condition of the specimens is particularly important, it must be known or controlled and repeatable. Our client is looking for a polishing device that allows the polishing to be controlled and then its influence on the mechanical characteristics of the specimen to be studied.
Solution and result
LF Technologies has designed a system for automatic polishing of specimens with an abrasive bar, which is easy to use thanks to its control panel and its PC control, from which the user can create his own test programs.
In order to meet the customer's requirements, this bench has two working modes, one automatic and one manual, in its upper part.
The automatic station consists of a test piece spindle, which can move in a horizontal plane, and a second abrasive spindle, which allows the polishing of a test piece via an operator-defined programme. The specimen spindle rotates around a horizontal axis to contact the abrasive bar.
The manual station is equipped with a chuck, tailstock and hand rest for manual polishing.
This polishing machine allows for repeatable polishing of specimens in different types of polishing.