AMPC Equipment
Sand Casting
Commercial foundry equipment forming a no-bake (air-set) sand casting line, for moulds up to 1 m x 1 m in size, comprising hopper, sand mixer, vibratory compaction, roll-over, 300 kg furnace for melting aluminium, heated ladle and de-coring oven.
Gravity Die Casting
A commercial 90° tilting gravity die casting machine, with 800 x 500 mm platens and four double die cooling channels for air and water, capable of casting components up to 20 kg in weight.
Free-form Bending
A commercial 6-axis servohydraulic computer numerical control (CNC) free-form bending machine to allow continuously fed extruded profiles of up to 4 m in length to be bent into complex geometries.
Roll Bending
A commercial 35 tonne roll bending machine, with three individually servomotor-driven rolls, computer control, automatic radius correction, and positioning resolution of 1/100 mm.
Electromagnetic Pulse Forming & Welding
An innovative method of shaping and joining that uses the force generated by short, energetic electromagnetic pulses in combination with field shapers, mandrels and dies. It can be used for many applications including shaping hollow sections and joining dissimilar metals.
Heat Treatment
A range of large heat treatment ovens for homogenisation, solution and ageing treatments of billets, extruded profiles, fabricated components and cast components. The facilities include a water/polymer quench bath.
Machining
Machining facilities include a CNC machining centre, CNC lathe, electro-discharge wire cutting, and other workshop equipment. The equipment is used for fabricating prototype components and machining test specimens.
Joining
A cold metal transfer (CMT) welding set with a universal robot, for welding at very low heat input to minimise distortion and for welding thin gauges. A Flow Drill Screwdriving system, which forms holes, threads and inserts a screw in a single step: ideal for joining to hollow sections and where access is difficult.
Mechanical Testing
A 100 kN servohydraulic fatigue test frame and a 100 kN electromehcanical universal test frame, both with environment chambers for testing at up to 600°C. Strain measurement by contact extensometry and a dual-camera optical strain measurement system. Supported by hardness testing and inspection microscopes.
X-ray CT Scanning
Two x-ray computed tomography systems for 3D inspection: a 450 kV system for inspection of large sized components capable of imaging defects of 100 µm; and a 150 kV system with micron scale resolution in small samples.
Optical 3D Scanning
Precise measurement of components by stereo- camera optical 3D scanning with triple scan functionality, additional photogrammetry, touch probes for out of sight measurement, and inspection turntable.