Martin Engineering's Center for Bulk Materials Handling Innovation (CFI) incorporates four laboratories to perform sophisticated testing and analysis of customer bulk materials and Martin Engineering systems and components.

Bulk Materials Laboratory - This laboratory determines the properties of bulk materials to improve the design of equipment used in industrial applications.

Material samples are analyzed to determine particle size distribution, moisture content, particle density, and flow behavior over a range of conditions and environments.

The laboratory offers a special focus on managing the flow of material from storage and to and from conveyors.

Metals Laboratory - This laboratory studies the materials used to construct bulk material handling equipment, to guide improvements to the existing systems or to evaluate new materials. This makes certain a customer, or an industry, gets the best match to its conditions and requirements.

The "hard" materials studied include tungsten carbide, ceramics, steels, composites, and various alloys.

Factors evaluated include wear life, impact resistance, corrosion resistance, and load-bearing performance, through tests including hardness, flexure, impact resistance, and two- and three-body abrasion.

Polymers Laboratory - This laboratory assesses the performance of "softer" components used in material handling systems, to improve the performance of components in the variety of applications. These tests will determine the specific materials that best match up to customer application conditions.

These "softer" materials include polyurethane, rubber, plastics, polymers and other elastomers.

Analysis of hardness, modulus, flexure, compression, tensile strength, and fracture strength will be conducted.

New formulations of materials can be processed in trial-size batches, to ensure that Martin Engineering materials provide the best match to meet application requirements.

Environmental Laboratory - The laboratory will make sure solids handling equipment will operate even under "worst case" conditions.

It offers the opportunity to test materials under conditions from -73° to 190° C (-100° to 375° F) and 10% to 98% humidity.

Samples conditioned under these adverse conditions can then be analyzed in any of the other laboratories.

CFI also houses full-sized material handling equipment for the testing of material properties and equipment performance under "real life" conditions.

Center for Innovation Homepage

What is the Center for Innovation?