Pittsburgh Materials Technology, Inc.

Specialized Capabilities May Solve a Problem for You

Specialty Testing


	With project experience involving temperatures above 2000° C, vacuums to 10-10 torr, hydrogen atmospheres, use of thousands of amps, millions of cycles, and much more, PMTI has developed the capability to address very specialized customer needs. The best way to describe these capabilities is to provide anecdotes of prior projects. Tell us about your challenges and let's see if we can help create a solution. Mechanical A customer had an urgent need to perform a drop test on a downcomer. PMTI personnel were able to design and fabricate a high-impact testing device. Using a high-speed camera, we were able to view in ultra-slow motion the testing of a proposed synthetic downcomer, to be used on the side of a ship. Currently, these downcomers are steel and the pounding from tugboats distorts the shape. The lead weight did a free fall into the downcomer, which was able to absorb the force easily. The energy absorbed was sufficient to throw the 4,000 pound weight several feet into the air. The high-speed video not only allows the engineers to see the reaction, it reduces risk for customers, as they can evaluate new purchases. Temperature Thermocouples are often used to measure process and test temperature. Ever wonder how accurate thermocouples are over time? So did one of our customers. PMTI assembled a test in which a number of thermocouples of the same type but from different suppliers were inserted into a black body that was placed into a high temperature furnace. The black body's temperature was measured by a calibrated pyrometer. The test was run for several thousand hours and the drift of the various thermocouples recorded. Testing An aerospace firm approached PMTI to do some high temperature testing of a coated refractory material. Because of the coating, a furnace with graphite internals had to be used. Tensile testing, low cycle fatigue and high cycle fatigue testing was required. The test temperature was 2600° F in helium. PMTI was able to deliver! Another customer came to PMTI with a designed and fabricated latch assembly. Again, schedule was critical. PMTI quickly assembled and qualified a test fixture that was able to exercise the assembly through its operational cycle. After some 10,000 cycles, PMTI was able to show that galling of similar metals was causing a problem. With these findings, the customer changed some of the mating materials and was able to meet their production schedule. Materials A DOE National Laboratory asked PMTI to produce a discontinuous reinforced aluminum composite that was unique because it used pure aluminum and had a higher than normal percentage of reinforcement particles. The unique aspects of this development included small batch size, vacuum processing to protect the pure aluminum, and a higher reinforcement volume fraction. Through use of our hot press, the material was densified to near 100%. The requirements for purity sputtering target production for use in the electronic industry are extreme. PMTI is able to take ultra-pure titanium, add some alloying elements and produce an ingot for a commercial customer that can be turned into a sputtering target that meets the requirements of the electronics industry. Energy Conversion Industry has been focused for a number of years on devices that can directly convert thermal energy into electricity. For one customer, PMTI was able to perform a prototype test of the conversion device in a vacuum and measured the performance of the device.

Pittsburgh Materials Technology, Inc.
1801 Route 51, Building 10, Jefferson Hills, PA 15025
Phone: (412) 382-7150 Fax: (412) 382-7148
Contact Us