Simulated High Temperature

I was trying to figure out how to run some dog bone tests at elevated temperature of 270F without having to buy any equipment and to do it the simplest way possible. I applied the Ideal Final Result (IFR) from TRIZ and decided to rip out my home oven since my wife wants a new one anyway. But that sounded like a lot of work, so I kept thinking about it at thought why not try my camera lights !

I don't know how hot they can get, but I know they get hot.....so I thought I would try it.

I set up several objects on a post and adjusted the distance from the post while measuring the temperature of the surface with a laser thermometer. In the picture below I used a piece of wood, trying to simulate a good insulator like the plastics.



















Notice in the picture my wife made me carry the fire extinguisher into the bedroom.

Conclusion - I could easily reach the 270F temperature.

Here are the distances and surface temperatures. The distance is the distance between the bulb (not the protective face) and the face of the sample.

6 inches = 250F
4 inches = 275
2 inches = 380

Actually I got an aluminum plate up to over 600F



















Looking closely at this picture and you can see the smoke coming off the sample. This was slightly before it caught on fire :)

SLS Up Close

Here is what some of our SLS powders look like up close. The "scattered" images simply means I spread the powder out real thin to be able to see the particle size distribution better.

You can see that most of the major particle sizes are about 80 microns or so, but there is large range is size distribution. This may or may not be a good thing.

You can see from the partcake samples how the material as conglomerated. We should be able to develop a process to re-grind and/or refurb the partcake material on site to virgin material specifications.

Looking at the HST materials, you can see the glass fibers in the mix. The is a large range in fiber length as well, from 100 microns or so down to just a few. Just looking at the pciture I would guess it is about 10% glass in the formulation.

I have also included material on a 100's of an inch scale to confim my scale calibrations as well as a picture of a 4 thousandths shim. For reference 4 thousandths of an inch is approxiamtely 100 microns.

This HST sample gives us a good idea on formulating new fiber reinforced materials.




































































































































































































Particles on a 100's metal scale

















4 thousandths/100 micron shim