The banners are up, the flyers are ready and we’re looking forward to meeting you! It’s time to greet visitors at today’s engineering industry showcase at the University of Southampton, along with colleagues from ISVR Consulting, the Wolfson Unit and more.

Always a pleasure to meet people face-to-face and show off our superb range of materials science expertise and facilities. We look forward to discussing how we can help solve your industry problems.

Many thanks to our colleagues at the University’s School of Engineering for making it happen.

Talk to us about how we can help optimise your product development.

From identifying the most suitable material for your product, to investigating issues with your prototype, our expert consultants can provide the insights you need to ensure your project goes smoothly and avoids any bumps in the road.

Check out our full range of testing and analysis capabilities and get in touch to find out how we can support your R&D.

A big thank you to Dr Dimitra Georgiadou, our go-to expert in the characterisation of thin film and optoelectronic materials and devices, for giving us a tour of the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC).

The ORC’s superb facilities include bespoke instruments for the measurement of surface and/or optical properties. Dimitra is skilled in using these to gain the insights our clients need into the behaviour and performance of novel thin film materials and devices.

If Dimitra’s expertise could help take your product development forward, get in touch.

Think university R&D is out of reach? Join us on Wednesday 11 June 2025 for a special engineering industry showcase and find out how easy it is to tap into specialist engineering services and support.

Hosted by the School of Engineering, it’s a unique opportunity to see the University’s superb facilities for yourself and and learn how the University of Southampton’s capabilities can give your R&D the edge.

🔬 Hear about the wide range of testing, imaging and characterisation facilities available for industry use, and join lab tours to see them for yourself.

🧑‍🔬 Talk to experts from different engineering specialities and find out how they can support your projects.

🤝 Explore how you can engage with the University through consultancy services and research partnerships.

There’s also a chance to discover more about Education within the School of Engineering, including previewing innovative design projects by our final-year engineering undergraduates, and connect with talented future engineers.

The nC2 team will be there, along with lots of our engineering colleagues, all ready to help you take advantage of the subject matter expertise and cutting-edge capabilities at Southampton.

Visit Eventbrite to find out more and register your place. We look forward to welcoming you!

Well this makes a change… usually we only paint samples for testing, but in this video you’ll see us sprucing up some cabins!

We had a brilliant team day volunteering at the QE2 Activity Centre, which provides activity sessions and day services for people with additional needs including learning disabilities, autism, physical disabilities and sensory impairment.

It was great to get together and do a team-building activity that will really make a difference for this amazing local resource.

Thanks to everyone at the Centre for having us.

If you need help to solve a materials engineering problem, get in touch.

We offer free, no-strings initial consultations, so you can talk to our expert consultants about your requirements and we can advise on the best solution – all in the strictest confidence of course.

Come and meet us in person and take a lab tour, or arrange a call – find out more here.

We had a brilliant day at The Mountbatten School in Romsey running our escape room challenge in five science lessons!

We’re passionate about making STEM accessible and enjoyable, so the school’s feedback is music to our ears: “A big thank you for running such a fun and thought-provoking escape room! Our students loved the challenge – and it was a brilliant way to explore real-world links to materials science while getting them thinking critically and creatively.  A fantastic hands-on experience that sparked curiosity and showed science in action!”

Thanks to Mountbatten for having us and to all the students for getting stuck into the challenge with such relish.

It’s official! We’re delighted to have received our ISO 9001 certificate – evidence of our commitment to the highest standards of service and customer care. You can find out more about our quality policy here.

Congratulations to the team, especially Rachel Triggs and Dr Spencer Court who led us on our journey to certification success.

Is your business thinking about ISO 9001 accreditation? Read our LinkedIn newsletter for some tips from the nC² team.

Congratulations to our Director, Professor Nicola Symonds, who has been appointed a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. This prestigious award recognises Nicola’s distinguished career in air-accident investigation.

“I am thrilled to have been elected a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society which represents a life-long achievement that I have been working towards for the best part of two decades. As someone who is deeply passionate about celebrating the role of women in the workplace, I hope this inspires a new generation of young female students to see the incredible opportunities that a career in engineering can bring.”

Read more about Nicola’s accident investigation work here.

You know that moment in police dramas when forensics come back with a result that turns the whole case around? One of the techniques forensic labs use to analyse scene-of-crime material is Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy – and we use it to solve industry problems too.

FTIR uses infrared light to identify an organic material’s unique spectral fingerprint. As you might expect from something that has to stand up in court, it’s incredibly accurate and reliable. Our rapid FTIR testing service can help you to:

• accurately identify a material
• compare or verify samples for quality control, monitoring or problem solving
• resolve failure issues, for example determining the cause of an unwanted residue by comparing samples of the residue and potential source materials

Could FTIR help you crack a materials engineering problem? Find out more and get in touch with our expert consultants for a no-strings conversation

We are thrilled that following a thorough audit of our quality systems and processes by the BSI (British Standards Institution), we have been recommended for ISO 9001 certification.

This is an internationally recognised standard for organisational quality management systems and provides our clients with added confidence in our commitment to delivering services of the highest quality.  You can read our quality policy here.

Nothing makes us happier than seeing kids having fun while getting stuck into STEM!

We love sharing our passion for materials science, so it was great to welcome more than 65 families to our escape room style activity at the University of Southampton’s Science and Engineering Day. They tackled a series of challenges, learning about concepts such as corrosion, surface damage, fractography, friction and chemical analysis along the way.

A big thank you to the hardworking team from nC² and the School of Engineering who made it all happen on the day. You can see more photos from the event here (with thanks to photographer Thomas Dyke).

Understanding how materials perform – and why things sometimes go wrong – is crucial for everyone’s safety. That’s why our Director, Professor Nicola Symonds, is always keen to share her forensic engineering expertise with up-and-coming engineers. Having investigated numerous rail, air and marine accidents, she’s well placed to bring the subject to life with examples from her own career.

This week she gave a guest lecture to students on the Failure of Materials and Components module, which brings together budding mechanical, aerospace, maritime and civil engineers from across the University of Southampton’s MSc and MEng engineering degrees. The module focuses on the performance of different structural materials in a range of applications, the assessment of failure problems, and the associated micromechanical failure modes.

Module lead Professor Ian Sinclair says: “We include lots of real-world examples, like the ones Nicola presents, to keep the relevance and applicability clear. Nicola’s lecture goes down really well with the cohort every year.”

Find out more about our expert failure and accident investigation services.

This image represents the power of bubbles – and the testing process we use to measure it.

Cavitation erosion is caused by the implosion of gas bubbles on a surface, resulting in damage and material loss. The picture on the left shows the effects of cavitation on a nickel sample, taken at hourly intervals over an 8-hour period.

At nC2 we’re undertaking a programme of cavitation testing to examine the effect of binders in cobalt chrome on its cavitation resistance. We’re carrying out this work to ASTM G32 ‘Standard Test Method for Cavitation Erosion Using Vibratory Apparatus’, exposing samples to cavitation and interrupting the test on an hourly basis to measure mass loss. In order to conform to the standard we compare our equipment using a nickel alloy like the one shown.

This is one of the more unusual mechanical tests we’ve done recently, and a great example of our bespoke testing services for clients whose specifications go beyond the norm.

It’s a torsion test using our Instron E10000. We simulated doing up a nut on a bolted joint to a specified torque, and measured the resulting tension within the bolt with a sandwich type load cell.

If your project would benefit from custom testing tailored to your spec, get in touch to find out how we can help.

They say every picture tells a story…

Using highly magnified images like this one, our experts are able to find out what’s happened to a material – in this case, corrosion – using samples from our own laboratory testing or from components provided by the client.

This microsection of an aluminium bronze alloy shows that the component is subject to selective phase corrosion. With insights like these we help our customers to understand the causes of corrosion and how to prevent it.

Find out more about our corrosion testing and analysis capabilities.

How has 3D printing enhanced your business? At nC², our desktop 3D printer has become an invaluable tool in the lab. It means we can rapidly build bespoke parts and attachments for our clients’ projects, adding value to our testing capability and timely project delivery.

If your project would benefit from our custom designed testing and analysis, get in touch for a chat with one of our consultants.

Congratulations to Dr Benjamin Cunningham, our mechanical testing expert, who has become a Chartered Engineer.

We’re really proud to celebrate this professional milestone, which demonstrates Ben’s high level of engineering competence and expertise. Well done Ben!

You can read more about Ben’s skills and experience here, and explore our mechanical testing services.