Facilities

We have access to a growing number of resources in our lab and in facilities across the UK and beyond to provide you with the data and information required for your application.

Microscopy

• Optical microscopy
• Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)
  • Electron BackScatter Diffraction (EBSD)
    
  • Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS)
    
• Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM)
  

Mechanical Testing

• 250kN electro-mechanical testing machine
  • High temperature chamber
    
• 100kN hydraulic tension-compression-torsion testing machine
  • Environmental chamber
    
• 5kN micro-mechanical testing machine
• Digital Image Correlation (DIC)
  

Computational Facilities

We have access to an extensive range of computational facilities, including:

• Group Workstation: 28 cores, 256GB RAM, 4GB GPU
• School of Engineering cluster: 240 cores, 3GB RAM per core
• ARCHIE-WeSt: 3048 cores, 8 large memory nodes with 512GB RAM, 8 GPU servers

International Facilities

We regularly access international synchrotron facilities, such as the Advanced Photon Source (APS) and the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), to conduct advanced in situ X-ray diffraction-based characterisation techniques, including:

• Lattice strain measurements
• 3D X-ray diffraction microscopy (3D-XRDM)