Composite development services supporting research, specification, design and production including performance and property testing of composite materials

Our composites development services ensure that the performance of each unique composite formulation is optimised and achieves the certification required for its intended use across all composite applications such as sandwich materials, thermoplastics, polymer, prepegs, lamina and laminate, resins and more, across the entire range.
 
Specific awareness of composite development factors such as cure, mold and cure times along with a knowledge of the characterisations of materials used aside factors such as the relative strengths of composites and interpretation of testing procedures are all key and specialised fields and present potentially costly factors that incur large time investments and demand expert input.
 
Our composites development services can assist you to reduce cycle times, improve strength to weight ratios, understand failure, assess quality and provide core problem-solving and troubleshooting solutions in a demanding market. Through comprehensive composite testing programs our experts help you optimize cure times, measure and compare materials and understand common processing issues such as voids and delamination in composite applications.
 
Highlights of Composite Applications

  • Thermoset composites testing: Intertek experts assist to optimize cure times and understand wetting / adhesion to reinforcement along with high-temperature properties associated with traditional or advance thermoset constructions with epoxy, phenolic, polyurethane, silicones, polyimides and more.
  • Thermoplastic composites testing: Specialized services to reduce mold cycle and processing times offered to melt-processability, molecular weight, degradation, expansion and shrinkage available along with material characterization for industry acceptance.
  • Lamina and laminate properties testing: Expert testing of single-ply lamina strength to maximize laminate layup configuration. 
  • Sandwich construction testing: Important considerations for sandwich materials include assessing strength on adhesion of facings using specialized tests such as climbing drum peel.
  • Resin testing: Polymer expertise for all aspects of plastic material characterization- glass transition, melting points, density, stress/strain, tensile testing and more.
  • Adhesive testing: Surface and adhesion specialists round out common strength assessment tests such as lap shear.
  • Core testing: Core materials play a key role in optimizing strength to weight calculations.  Understanding compression and tension deformation and strength is important to qualify materials.
  • Prepreg testing: Solids content and gel time are just a few of the properties commonly assessed for prepregs.  More advanced cure studies available.

With expertise in North America and Europe our composite development services are focused on advancing your composite technology for your specific industry application.