News

As Halloween comes around, we answer the question on every surface scientist’s lips… what is the wear resistance of a pumpkin?

To find out, we tested samples from four different types on our TE66 micro-scale abrasion testing rig. Which was the most wear resistant? Watch the video to see the testing process and the results…

Here’s the technical bit: weight used: 240 g, revolutions: 1,200 rev completed, ball speed: 90 rpm, ball diameter: 25 mm, slurry: 4 um diameter particles in water (0.75 g/cm³).

A big thank you to third-year PhD student Lijia Yi who ran the tests, and to our Director Nicola who made sure nothing went to waste by barbecuing the leftovers (the acorn squash won the taste test).

Happy Halloween from all at nC²!

We’re delighted to introduce Dr Franklin Nobrega, an expert in microbiology and the latest addition to our network of specialists.

If your project involves understanding the presence or behaviour of microorganisms we will bring Franklin on board to advise on the best approach and conduct testing and analysis. With extensive research and industry experience and access to advanced equipment for testing and discovery, Franklin is well placed to meet our clients’ testing needs. You can read more about Franklin here.

If your project could benefit from his expertise, please get in touch.

We’ve made another step towards sustainability by moving our website to a hosting provider verified by the Green Web Foundation. This means it’s now on a server powered by green energy.

Delighted to do our bit towards the Foundation’s goal of a fossil-free internet by 2030. Thank you to PinkSEO for helping to make it happen.

On Ada Lovelace Day we’re celebrating the brilliant women in the nC² team. We’re proud that our engineering consultancy bucks the trend of gender imbalance in engineering, with women making up more than half of our core team, and experts such as Dr Kathryn Rankin, Dr Julie Herman, Professor Lindsay-Marie Armstrong, Dr Dimitra Georgiadou and Dr Agnes Macey-Michalik among our specialist advisors.

Find out more about the team.

Today is nC²’s 9th birthday! We’ve achieved so much in the last 9 years – growing from 2 staff members to 7, expanding our network of specialist advisors, delivering expert materials testing and advice to clients across many industry sectors and building lasting relationships along the way.

Thank you to everyone who has been part of the journey so far.

Congratulations to our Director, Professor Nicola Symonds, who has been nominated for a University of Southampton Vice-Chancellor’s Award in the Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise category.

The awards will be presented at a celebratory dinner on Thursday – best of luck to Nicola and to the other nominees in the category, Dr Wonyong Park, NeuroKids Team and the International Blast Injury Research Network team.

By looking at materials at micro scale we provide invaluable insights into their behaviour. This optical microscopy image shows a tungsten carbide coating that has been subjected to air-sand erosion testing.

Engineering components that are vulnerable to erosion are often protected with coatings to prolong their operating life. We have advanced testing facilities and specialist expertise to assess the performance of these materials for our clients.

If air-sand erosion would benefit your project, get in touch for a free consultation.

Our unique erosion testing capabilities include a purpose-built air-sand erosion testing rig. The samples inside are blasted by dry sand in a fast-moving dry air stream, with the tests tailored to clients’ specific in-service conditions.

These bespoke tests are essential for selecting materials or coatings that will be exposed to particles in air, from industrial drill bits to aerospace components.

If air-sand erosion testing would benefit your project, our expert consultant JB will be happy to hear from you.

Always a thrill to see your name on a billboard! Here’s our Director, Professor Nicola Symonds, with a new hoarding that showcases nC²‘s work supporting the conservation of HMS Victory.

We’re proud to tell the world how our materials testing expertise is helping the National Museum of the Royal Navy to preserve this icon of maritime heritage. Learn more about the HMS Victory project here.

Our spotlight on erosion testing continues with a look at some of our bespoke kit. This is our slurry (water-sand) erosion test rig, which works by firing a mix of sand and water through a nozzle onto a surface for a set time. We design tests tailored to simulate specific real-world conditions, to give insights into how a product or material will perform in service.

After the samples have been blasted with particles, we analyse them using a range of techniques to see the effects, helping clients to understand why a problem has occurred, or select the right coatings or materials for their product. You can find out more on our particulate erosion testing page.

At nC² we’re proud to be a centre for erosion testing excellence – and here’s the man whose expertise puts us at the forefront. Dr Jelili Bello (JB) specialises in air-sand and water-sand (slurry) erosion testing, using our unique test rigs to recreate the complexities of clients’ specific in-service conditions.

With many years’ experience, JB is well placed to understand your engineering issues and design the right tests for the insights you need, whether you’re looking to solve an erosion-related problem or select the best coating or material for your product.

If tapping into JB’s erosion testing expertise could help move your project forward, please get in touch.

Grappling with a tricky materials-related problem? We offer free, no-strings initial consultations, so you can talk to our expert materials scientists and we’ll help you find the right solution.

Get in touch to arrange a video or phone call, or even better come and meet us in person and take a lab tour to see our capabilities for yourself.

This highly magnified image and its colourful counterpart show the results of hardness testing – in this case, 20 hardness values in martensitic stainless steel.

Hardness testing – typically of metals – is one of the many materials characterisation techniques we perform for our clients, and can help to:

• check whether a metal’s hardness matches assumed values
• give an indication of other material properties, such as strength
• determine changes that indicate whether a metal has been inadvertently heat-treated in service
• identify any hardening that has taken place due to in-service material deformation (otherwise known as strain hardening) to give insights into loading condition

If hardness testing would help you with a product design, materials selection or performance issue, we can help – get in touch for a free initial consultation.

As a university-based consultancy, we have access to a wealth of additional specialist expertise that we can bring on board to support our clients’ projects. Basically, if we can’t do it, we know someone who can!

Our partners include leading experts in a range of fields, from advanced imaging techniques to polymer chemistry, nanotribology and computational fluid dynamics. You can read their profiles here.

This image shows the results of slurry (sand and water) erosion testing carried out in our labs on a metal surface.

At nC² we have the capabilities to conduct robust erosion testing and state-of-the-art facilities to characterise the failure mechanism of materials, enabling erosion-resistant materials to be developed. This example is a metal we tested and characterised using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), showing the ductile failure mechanism of the metal due to slurry erosion.

If you’re looking for insights from erosion testing, we’d be pleased to hear from you.

Our precision balance works to 0.00001 g accuracy (ie 10 micrograms). It has touch-operated slide doors and is isolated from vibration, sitting on a floating granite base with rubber feet.

We use it for wear experiments and other tests to identify loss of material, and in failure investigations to confirm expected weights.

Would your project benefit from our state-of-the-art equipment and expertise? If so, get in touch and let’s talk.

Our Senior Corrosion Consultant Dr Spencer Court has been busy measuring the electric potential of metal structures within the University of Southampton Towing Tank to ensure they stay corrosion-free for many years to come.

If you’d like to know more about our corrosion monitoring services, get in touch and we’ll be happy to discuss your requirements.