Institut Charles Sadron Plateformes

The Micro and Nano Mechanics platform gives access, for academic and industrial collaborations, innovative techniques of the ICS developed to study surface properties of polymers with a in-situ vision.

The hole equipment allow to probe the matter with various speeds, temperatures and relative humidities ; and to work at various scales from a few nanometers to the millimeter scale. The platform possesses also volumic properties characterization assays and an instrumented X-Ray tomograph for >em>in-situ>/em> mechanical assays (compression and indentation).

Surface properties characterization

1. Instrumented scratch test apparatus

This instrument is dedicated to mechanical properties measures of solid polymer surfaces by in-situ vision.

Main functions:

• Scratch tests
• Indentation tests (creep and recovery of the contact)
• Scratch fatigue tests

Main characteristics:

• In-situ vision of the contact between indenter and surface during tests.
• Temperature : -50 to 110°C and controlled hygrometry.
• Scratch sliding speed : 1um/s to 10mm/s.
• Normal load from 0.1 to 25N and different indenter geometries (1MPa to 1GPa contact pressure).
• Indenter (spherical, conical, pyramidal, …) of curvature rays comprised between 10µm and 25mm.

Complementary equipment:

• Laser interferometry to follow the evolution of imprint recovery.

2. NanoIndenteur – NanoScratch

Instrument dedicated to the measurement of mechanical properties of surfaces by nano indentation and nano scratch.

Main characteristics:

• Normal load from 0.05mN until 100mN.
• Penetration depth until 50 µm.
• Environmental chamber (control of temperatures, humidity, pressure) and test plate with controllable temperature.
• Contact area measurements by in-situ vision.
  

Complementary equipment:

• Nanoscratch: measurable force range from 0,05mN to 1N and scratch speed from 0.1µm/s to 10mm/s.
• Optical microscopy.
• AFM: cartography of 40µm x 40 µm and Z of 4µm.
  
  

3. High load tribometer

Instrument dedicated to the measure of mechanical properties of non-transparent surfaces.

Main functions:

• Scratch tests.
• Indentation tests (creep-coverage of contact).
• Fatigue tests in scratch.

Main characteristics:

• Imaging system for in-situ vision of contact and for footprint coverage follow-up.
• Thermic chamber (Tests temperatures between 5°C and 60°C and controlled humidity).
• Displacement speed in scratch: 1µm/s  10mm/s.
• Normal load from 0.05 to 25N.
• Indentor (spherical, conical, pyramidal, …) of curvature radius comprised between 10µm and 25mm

Complementary equipment:

• Rotating module for high speed tests (6m/s) ;
• Interferometric microscope for surfaces observation.

4. JKR Dynamique

Instrument allowing the investigation of contact (adhesion, surface energy) bewteen a soft and a rigid matter or between two soft matters.

Main characteristics:

• Temperature control (betweenn -40°C and 110°C) and of humidity.
• Normal load comprised between 0.05N and 10N.
• Frequency from 0.02Hz to 20Hz.
• In-situ vision of the contact.

Volumetric properties characterizations

1. X-Ray tomograph

Observation and analysis of micro structure of samples.

Main characteristics:

• Resolution between 0.4µm and 100µm.
• 2 sources:
• 50 - 150kV
• 40 - 160kV
• 2 imagers:
• Flat panel
• CCD

Complementary equipment:

• Compression/traction module with temperature control.
• Indentation module.
• Humidity control cell

2. Instrumented traction device

Traction, compression, shearing, flexion and DMA tests.

Main characteristics:

• Applicable force until 10 kN.
• Thermal chamber (temperature from -80°C to 200°C).

Complementary equipment:

• Imagery system allowing image correlation.

3. Dynamic traction appartus (INSTRON ElectroPlus E3000)

Traction, compression and DMA tests.

Main characteristics:

• Force sensors of 10N, 100N and 1kN.
• Thermal chamber (temperature from -80°C to 200°C)

Complementary equipment:

• Extensometer video

4. DMA Mettler Toledo

Complex elasticity module depending on the temperature and the traction, compression, shearing and flexion frequency.

Main characteristics:

• Solicitation frequency comprised between 0.001 and 100Hz
• Applicable force from 0.01mN to 10N
• Maximal displacement of the traverse of 1 mm.
• Thermal chamber (temperature between -170°C and 160°C)
• Hygrometric chamber (rH% between 0 and 80% for a temperature range between 5 to 80°C)