TestBench & Planar Biaxial Test Instruments

TestBench instruments are used to perform tests similar to Load Frames since they also reveal important stiffness, strength, and durability characteristics of test samples, often pushing samples to failure to determine yield strength, ultimate strength and fatigue life. Test samples range from materials to subcomponents to complete components/products. Loading is applied by linear motors with a variety of loading profiles. These profiles can be a single push or pull-to-failure such as a classic ‘tensile test’, repetitive loading for fatigue, or creep/stress-relaxation measurements. Environmental effects can be evaluated by testing in fluid submersion. Occasionally, more complex modes such as axial-torsion or planar biaxial loading are used to characterize samples in various states of stress and strain, including evaluating material anisotropy.

A versatile breadboard-based instrument such as the TestBench series offers a highly configurable, flexible, and open test space to accommodate a range of sample sizes and geometries. It leverages one or more linear motors as the primary loading mechanism(s), and force and displacement sensors for measuring the sample’s mechanical response. These can be flexibility oriented in virtually any position on a breadboard baseplate to act on one sample in multiple directions, or to load multiple specimens independently but side-by-side. The components are integrated to a test controller and software user interface which allows users to program a variety of tests, ranging from a simple ramp-to-failure, fatigue sine waves, and complex real-world simulation profiles.