The Department offers a wide range of modern facilities for the evaluation of the microstructure. There is large experience available in the examination of spacecraft materials both, for the characterisation of the microstructure and for failure investigations by correlation to macroscopic properties. Numerous ceramic, metallic and organic spacecraft materials were investigated.
Optical Microscope
Our metallographic laboratory is well equipped to prepare micrographs including all preparatory work like grinding, polishing and etching of metallographic samples. The ligth metallographic microscope (Reichert-Jung MeF3) is an excellent instrument with almost all accessories. This microscope is equipped with a Microhardness tester, Micro-duromat 4000. The microscope is also connected to a PC via a digital camera for the acquisition of the pictures in JPG format.
The magnifying range is between x16 and x1600. The minimum mesurable length is also around 0,63µm.
leopold.schorn@ait.ac.at