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Material Measurement Laboratory / Materials Science and Engineering Division

Mechanical Performance Group

Projects/Programs

Displaying 1 - 17 of 17

Automotive Lightweighting

Ongoing
The US auto industry spends $600M per year fixing and tweaking forming dies that do not make correct parts. The primary reason that the dies are inaccurate is that the computer models of the dies utilize materials models that are inaccurate. Upon surveying our industrial partners, we determined that
A digital graphic of an airplane flying above the clouds during sunset.

Computational Materials For Qualification And Certification (CM4QC)

Ongoing
CM4QC is an informal collaboration of U.S. aviation-focused companies, research and regulatory government agencies, and universities that was assembled to develop a comprehensive strategic framework and maturation path for increasing the use of computational materials (CM) approaches in the aviation
2 meter diameter horizontal mechanical test machine with control computers

Cruciform Multiaxial Mechanical Testing

Ongoing
A new ARRA funded cruciform test machine is being installed in the NIST Center for Automotive Lightweighting. Its capabilities include 500kN load per axis, two DIC strain mapping systems (one for large field mapping and one for zooming in to study localizations or features), a high resolution, high

Dynamic Plasticity: Non-Equilibrium Mechanics

Ongoing
The optimization of high-speed machining processes through powerful finite element modeling techniques is an important pathway to American manufacturing competitiveness in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. Quantitatively accurate simulations of machining rely on robust constitutive

Fundamentals of Deformation

Ongoing
• We have provided general users from industry, academia and national laboratories with a completely new class of X-ray imaging techniques for materials studies (ultra-small-angle X-ray scattering imaging), that we developed from basic concept to DOE-supported operations at the Advanced Photon
Picture for Hardness and Coating Thickness Standardization and Measurements Project Including Equipment and Standards Organizations

Hardness Standardization and Measurements

Ongoing
DESCRIPTION Purpose: Provide measurement traceability for the Knoop, Rockwell, and Vickers hardness scales and for coating thickness measurements that are based on magnetic methods. Goals: Harmonization of hardness and coating thickness testing protocols, in pursuit of reduction of measurement

Marciniak Multiaxial Testing

Ongoing
This X-ray system can measure the full 3D stress tensor of the sheet in situ under multiaxial tension. The test is performed by raising the punch to stretch the sheet incrementally, then a hold is placed while the stress measurement is made. This step takes 2-4 minutes depending on the accuracy

NCAL: Diffraction Stress Measurement Under Applied Load

Ongoing
Using X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques one can measure the full stress tensor just inside the surface of a sheet metal specimen under applied loading. This permits the measurement of biaxial stress states resulting from directly applied deformation (see NCAL: Multiaxial Material Performance) or

NCAL: Intermediate Strain Rate Testing

Ongoing
This project seeks to improve servohydraulic testing methods at intermediate strain rates by addressing the well-known problems associated with excessive stress oscillations (ringing) that currently limit our understanding of the mechanical behavior of engineering materials for loading conditions

NCAL: International Documentary Standards Activities

Ongoing
NIST Center for Automotive Lightweighting (NCAL) staff participate in many different international standards committees (e.g. ISO TC 164, ASTM E28 and D30); however, our main focus has been in the mechanical testing of metals and, to a lesser extent, composites. We work on the calibration and

Physical Infrastructure: Connections

Completed
The NIST Physical Infrastructure Program will provide the critical measurement science needed to assess the condition of aging physical infrastructure and guide cost-effective strategies for its maintenance, repair, and replacement. Infrastructure management challenges in the U.S. have received

Springback

Ongoing
Springback, or the elastic change in shape when a part is released from the manufacturing process, has been a problem for decades and accounts for a significant fraction of the expense that the US auto industry spends each year trying out die sets for new body designs. The inability to predict the
Sustainable Metals Image Circular Blue and Green Arrows

Sustainable Metals Processing and Alloy Development

Ongoing
Foundational measurement science is being developed to support sustainable innovations through alloy design and optimization. The intergratation of experiments and computational thermodynamics and kinetics tools with mechanistic models enables the prediction of key processing-structure-property

Tension-Compression Testing

Ongoing
The inability to reliably predict the mechanical behavior of new automotive alloys during forming has generated strong demand for more advanced constitutive relationships and property data necessary to calibrate them. There is a particular need for models that incorporate combined kinematic and

Uniaxial Tension Beyond Necking

Ongoing
A major limitation of the uniaxial tensile test (ASTM E8) is that after a certain amount of tensile strain, the sample eventually undergoes a mechanical instability - it forms a neck. Although the sample continues to plastically deform, the stress can no longer be unambiguously determined as load

Yield Surface Measurement

Ongoing
The overarching philosophy for this project is to develop standard tests that produce clean multiaxial yield data for sheet metal that will be of use to the automotive industry in lightweighting efforts. To this end, it is required that the sheet being tested remain in the as-received condition (no
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