With regard to the industrial research on materials, the complete set of measurement and analysis equipment allows to successfully deal with all topics related to:
- Metallic material and alloy metallurgy
- Surface design
- All aspects of material technology, from low-graded steel to newly advanced metallic alloys or ceramics.
The RINA Microstructural Analysis Laboratory strategically supports other capabilities, such as mechanical testing during research and explanation of mechanisms at the base of material behaviour under static or dynamic applied loads.
We also support process and automation engineers and company quality officers in their selection of the correct setting of guidelines, by designing highly developed algorithms for the process control, or in removing expensive, dangerous and image-spoiling failure causes.
Focus on Labs and Facilities
- A Scanning and Transmission Microscope (STEM) aimed at detecting nanometre-sized precipitates, dislocation density, crystallography of matrices and second phases, both through thin film and extraction replica methodologies. Through the Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), the STEM is able to detect all the chemical elements of the periodic table;
- Five Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM), equipped with EDS devices that allow them to accomplish the qualitative and semi quantitative chemical analyses of specimens in order to directly analyse fracture surfaces, oxides, precipitates, etc. Two of those devices are furtherly equipped, respectively, with a Wavelength Dispersive X-Ray Spectrometer (WDS) and an Electron Back Scattered Diffractometer (EBSD), through which it is possible to have information on the crystallographic structure of matter;
- A set of four Optical Microscopes (OM), two of which are equipped with image acquisition and data elaboration of specimen devices, in order to extract statistical values relating microstructures to mechanical features;
- An Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis (ESCA) device that allows to investigate material surfaces and, when coupled with a sputtering gun, the first nanometre layers underneath;
- A Glow Discharge Optical Emission Spectroscopy (GDOES) which empowers the ESCA by going deeper under the surface, reaching from some nanometres to several hundreds microns, thus giving the concentration profiles of all the chemical elements;
- Five XRD devices for steel’s and other crystalline materials’ phases, microstructures and grain orientation identifications. These apparatuses supply polar figures and the calculation of the oriented distribution function (ODF).
The last two apparatuses are complementary and their integration allows us to deal with all problems related to such surface processes as oxidation, decarburisation, etc., thus providing metallurgists and surface engineers with a powerful instrument in support of material design and solving quality problems.
