OUR MATERIALS SERVICES
Our National Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth has always offered world-leading testing and validation services in relation to next generation blades, turbines and high-voltage (HV) insulation systems, with the support of the materials specialist personnel.
Our Materials Services team offers a variety of high-quality UKAS accredited examination processes and testing services, either as a standalone service or as part of a wider testing regime alongside other teams here at the Catapult. In response to rapidly growing client interest in this area, we have recently collected this expertise together to offer a comprehensive lab-based service for our clients.
Our Materials Services include:
Non-electric High Voltage (HV) Cable Type Testing
Blade leading edge erosion testing and analysis
Tribological testing and analysis
Root cause analysis failure investigations
Materials/composites research
Accelerated aging
Materials analysis
Mechanical testing and analysis
NON-ELECTRICAL HV CABLE TYPE TESTING
Our lab offers non-electrical type testing on cables from 1 kV to 500 kV, both single core and three-phase array cables and is capable of testing cables to the following standards: IEC 60502-2 (2014), IEC 60840 (2020), IEC 63026 (2019), and IEC 62067 (2011).
Testing can be provided in person or remotely, with a comprehensive test report including photographic evidence provided and of course, we offer the UKAS accredited HV electrical testing alongside these materials tests.
LEADING EDGE EROSION ANALYSIS
Our blade erosion testing facility offers state-of-the-art, accredited testing into the effects of the rain droplets impact on the leading-edge of a wind turbine blade.
Our highly experienced team have the capacity to manufacture samples, conduct numerous post-test analyses with a range of analytical tools at their disposal and can offer advice on materials selection, including thermo-mechanical properties, impact physics and degradation chemistry.
TRIBOLOGICAL TESTING
Currently under development is our new tribology laboratory which will initially offer tribometric characterisation of materials, including friction calculations, ageing estimations, wear properties and metallurgy associated with drive train wear.
We also offer grease/oil analysis to quantify the amount of metallic content and quality of the greases. This area of materials science is a new exciting addition to our Materials Services and enable our experts to support clients with the lifetime analysis of their products. Watch this space for new equipment and techniques becoming available in the near future.
FAILURE INVESTIGATIONS
The team at the Materials Laboratory has a great deal of experience in providing forensic dissection and root-cause failure analysis as well as witnessing services.
Utilising the team’s collective electrical, mechanical and materials knowledge on every project, clients can be assured of fast, accurate and definitive failure investigation testing. HV cables, WT blades and HV bushings are examples of particular specialisms that we offer.
COMPOSITES RESEARCH
The team are now regularly being asked by clients to contribute to product development and design improvement, by providing analytic testing of materials and designing test programmes to compare and evaluate material properties, ageing properties and analysis of individual cable layers.
The team has expertise in blade leading-edge composites/coatings, HV insulation materials, and metallurgy associated with drivetrain wear, and can offer support with everything from simple functional testing through to the delivery of large scale, complex research projects.
ACCELERATED AGING
The laboratory currently offers a range of accelerated ageing techniques to assess the product longevity.
Some of these techniques include: wet age HV cables testing, dynamic HV cable fatigue, thermal / environmental ageing capability, UV ageing and weathering analysis
MATERIALS ANALYSIS
Our Materials Laboratory at ORE Catapult equipped with various test facilities for physical, chemical analysis, and characterisation of the materials.
Some of our materials analysis equipment include X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), Fourier-transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), Karl-Fishcher titration, Pycnometer, and 2D/3D Microscopy.
MECHANICAL TESTING
Our Materials Laboratory at ORE Catapult offers mechanical tests on the materials including tensile, compression, and 3-point bend and peel testing.
Moreover, with our Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) test equipment we can perform various mechanical testing on the materials including fatigue, tension, shear, compression, 3-point bend at small scale for the research and development purposes.
CONTACT OUR TEAM
If you are interested in using our Materials Services and leading facilities, you can get in it touch to book in with:
