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Automotive Materials Testing
Automotive parts testing using scanning electron microscopy and spectroscopy.
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Automotive parts testing
Today’s automotive parts have seen incredible advances in the functionality and reliability of transmissions, fuel injection systems, power trains, and braking systems. These improvements are the result of fundamental advances in the materials used in automotive manufacturing, including novel, increasingly complex steel, glass, ceramic, and polymer materials.
Automotive materials testing
These improvements, however, also come with new challenges. For example, high-precision automotive parts are more susceptible to residual, micron-size particulate contamination, which results in component, or potentially even system, failure. To make matters worse, current analytical techniques are often inadequate (too low resolution) to help engineers determine the cause of these failures.
New vehicles also undergo extensive testing to ensure the production of reliable, quality automobiles along with further improvements to current materials and processes. For instance, the increasing demand for affordable, fuel-efficient tires requires better test methods to develop and study new rubber formulations. The next generation of rubber compounds has to reduce road resistance while still yielding a quality end product in order to substantially impact fuel efficiency. This starts with detailed analytical assessment using techniques such as electron microscopy.
Automotive quality control
Thermo Fisher Scientific provides a range of instrumentation and software that simplifies your automotive materials analysis. These tools also have the potential to greatly reduce production times as you bring the quality control process in-house. By no longer relying on outsourcing for your QC analysis, production-cycle time can decrease by up to ten-fold.
SEM image of an aluminum mineral grain found during the analysis of an automotive component.
Aluminum chip found during imaging and analysis of an automotive component.
SEM image of aluminum debris generated due to wear of a part as it was used. Debris provides valuable information on part degradation and cleanliness over time.
SEM image of an aluminum shaving found during cleanliness analysis of an automotive material. Size, morphology and chemistry provide valuable insight to the origin and initiating processes of particles found during testing.
SEM image of mineral fiber found during investigative analysis.
Watch on-demand: Particle Analysis Applications Using Desktop SEM Webinar Series
In each on-demand webinar, our expert will focus on one particular analysis application and how the Phenom ParticleX Desktop SEM overcomes some of the most common challenges. See the abstracts for individual sessions below.
- How to certify your NCM powder quality with SEM+EDS
- Electron-microscope-grade cleanliness in electronics
- Speed up your automated gunshot residue analysis
- Technical cleanliness analysis with an SEM: Why?
- Understand your steel with automated inclusion analysis
- One tool for complete AM powder characterization
Aluminum chip found during imaging and analysis of an automotive component.
SEM image of aluminum debris generated due to wear of a part as it was used. Debris provides valuable information on part degradation and cleanliness over time.
SEM image of an aluminum shaving found during cleanliness analysis of an automotive material. Size, morphology and chemistry provide valuable insight to the origin and initiating processes of particles found during testing.
SEM image of mineral fiber found during investigative analysis.
Watch on-demand: Particle Analysis Applications Using Desktop SEM Webinar Series
In each on-demand webinar, our expert will focus on one particular analysis application and how the Phenom ParticleX Desktop SEM overcomes some of the most common challenges. See the abstracts for individual sessions below.
- How to certify your NCM powder quality with SEM+EDS
- Electron-microscope-grade cleanliness in electronics
- Speed up your automated gunshot residue analysis
- Technical cleanliness analysis with an SEM: Why?
- Understand your steel with automated inclusion analysis
- One tool for complete AM powder characterization
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