High & Low Temperature Control

Temperature Control

Material properties can vary greatly with changes in temperature. Thus, when developing or characterising materials or coatings which are to be used in high temperature applications, test conditions should mimic in-service conditions as closely as possible.

The NanoTest Vantage hot stage allows (1) Nanoindentation (2) Nano-Scratch & Wear (3) Nano-Impact & Fatigue to be performed at temperatures of 750 ⁰C.

The NanoTest Vantage cold stage allows (1) Nanoindentation (2) Nano-scratch & Wear to be carried out at temperatures down to -30ºC.

High Temperature Stage

How it works 

The horizontal loading design of the NanoTest Vantage is critical for accurate and reliable testing at elevated temperatures. The configuration is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Important features

• Horizontal Loading – No heat flow into the loading head or depth measurement sensors, which are positioned to the left of the probe.
• Isothermal contact – The NanoTest Vantage hot stage controller uses separate heating of both probe and sample to ensure no heat flow occurs during the indentation process (UK patent).
• Highly localised heating – ensures instrument stability
• Time-dependant measurements - As no significant thermal drift occurs during elevated temperature measurements it becomes possible to perform longer duration tests such as indentation creep tests.
• Non-ambient gases - The NanoTest Vantage has a choice of a temperature controlled environmental chamber or a purging chamber that provides a choice of ambient atmospheres and vastly reduces oxidation of samples.

Wear prediction of PVD coatings for high speed turning

Figure 2 shows high temperature indentation on PVD coatings and the Hardness/Modulus ratio, which strongly influences wear in a variety of tribological situations. Nanoindentation on the PVD coatings shows why TiAlN outperforms TiCN in high speed turning despite having a lower hardness value at room temperature.

Figure 3 shows that the creep strain on Ti6Al4V is notably higher at 650ºC than 25⁰C and that in high speed cutting operations, wear resistance and lifetime of coated cutting tools are strongly correlated with their high temperature mechanical properties..

Cold Stage

How it works 

The NanoTest cold stage uses three stage Peltier cooling stages on both the indenter and the sample, ensuring isothermal contact during testing. An environmental enclosure is used to control the ambient conditions around the test area.

Nano-scratch testing of DLC coating to –30°C

Coating properties were seen to vary greatly with temperature. The figure on the left shows a scratch track made at room temperature, exhibiting some plastic damage but no critical failure.

The figure on the right shows the same scratch carried out at -30º, showing failure along the scratch track. Scratches run from right to left on each image.

Support Literature

Technical Notes

Our support literature for Temperature Control testing will provide a great introduction to the NanoTest Vantage, learn how you could be taking advantage.

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