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North Star Imaging and Instron is in Southern California for Helping the Industry, Academia, and Research

Reporter: Danut Dragoi, PhD

Today I visited North Star Imaging and Instron companies for their Open House in Irvine, California. I believe this is the first in California. Knowing some of their products very well I realized, after professional presentations and live demos that these machines can help Californian industry, Department of Homeland Security, as well as the research in many aspects of it, from nondestructive evaluation of key industrial products, medical devices inspections, aeronautic composites, as well as new applications in actual research such as Laser Metal Printing, Mechanical Engineering, bio-implants, etc. I found very interesting the presentation on imaging a 3D Printed object with an internal complex topology. For the quality of their pictures, cross sections and resolution I congratulate the team that put these breakthroughs together. The picture below is an X5000 x-ray machine capable  of producing high quality computed tomography pictures (CT) of various objects from many domains of industry and research.

Image SOURCE: http://4nsi.com/events/open-house

The famous STL files for 3D printing are produced here in a X5000 machine. A definition of STL file is given here. The STL (STereoLithography) is a file format native to the stereolithography CAD software created by 3D Systems. STL has several after-the-fact backronyms such as “Standard Triangle Language” and “Standard Tessellation Language”. This file format is supported by many other software packages; it is widely used for rapid prototyping, 3D printing and computer-aided manufacturing. STL files describe only the surface geometry of a three-dimensional object without any representation of color, texture or other common CAD model attributes. The STL format specifies both ASCII and binary representations. Binary files are more common, since they are more compact. An STL file describes a raw unstructured triangulated surface by the unit normal and vertices (ordered by the right-hand rule) of the triangles using a three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. STL coordinates must be positive numbers, there is no scale information, and the units are arbitrary. Once the 3D object is scanned, the STL file can be downloaded to the 3D printer machine and a copy of the original can be produced. For people working on Medical 3D Printing this machine is extremely useful.

Before a product is tested with Instron, the 3D pictures are important to be produced. In this way a complete analysis can be done in a very convenient time-machine and time-operator way. The next Figure below shows an Instron machine taken from here 

Image SOURCE: http://www.renishaw.com/en/instron-equips-its-new-electropuls-linear-torsion-tester-with-advanced-renishaw-encoders–29004

According with the information released, link in here, Instron, headquartered in Massachusetts, USA, is a global market leader in the materials testing industry. It manufactures and services a comprehensive range of materials testing equipment and accessories for the research, industrial and academic sectors. A variety of Instron systems test samples ranging from components for jet engines to medical syringes.

Instron has just launched an advanced bi-axial variant of the ElectroPuls E3000 All-Electric test instrument. The E3000 is a compact table-top instrument comprising: a load frame, crosshead with combined linear/torsion actuator, Dynacell load cell and T-slot table for fixing samples.

The state-of-the-art ElectroPuls series includes the E1000, E3000 and E10000 fatigue test systems. These are suited for biomedical / biomechanical research applications and feature a wide dynamic performance range and low force characteristics. ElectroPuls is all-electric and utilises linear motor technology, which eliminates the need for ball / lead-screws and enables slow-speed static tests through to high-frequency dynamic tests at over 100 Hz.

The new E3000 linear-torsion is a smaller-scale equivalent of the E10000 linear-torsion system and includes a rotation axis with a standard range of ±135° as well as optional multi-turn capability for applications such as orthopaedic bone-screw testing. An ElectroPuls bi-axial linear-torsion test can be conducted on most materials and has found applications in testing inter-vertebral disc prostheses, various bio-materials, athletic footwear and elastomeric components.

The Open House of the two companies, NSI and Instron, was very well organized and it was a great success for Californian industry, Academia, Medical testing, and Research.

Source

http://4nsi.com/events/open-house

http://www.renishaw.com/en/instron-equips-its-new-electropuls-linear-torsion-tester-with-advanced-renishaw-encoders–29004