Custom Testing
Micom Laboratories Inc. offers routine and custom material testing services for a wide range of materials and products. Despite the great number of standardized test methods available today, not all situations can be addressed by the standards writing community. The essence of what we do is to simulate real life, in the lab, under controlled yet accelerated conditions. Micom offers custom testing services as in many cases we will have to modify existing test methods or create new ones from the ground up to address specific needs or situations. These custom tests can be used to validate new designs and applications, for reliability studies or used to help convey root cause failure analyses.
To do so we have equipment that can simulate the sun, vibrations, impacts, loads, heat, cold, fatigue testing and many other tests. This can be done for different products and materials. This is where our staff’s experience and creativity shines the brightest; anyone can buy equipment; what to do with it to get the right information is another story.
Because of the wide range of test services Micom offers and all of its technical capabilities, we can prepare test protocols tailored specifically to your needs and test your products based on them. Micom is equipped to simulate accelerated aging and use of your products and/or components.
Our computer data acquisition and control capabilities combined with a wide range of actuators, environmental chambers, tensile testers and Weather-Ometer®️* allow us to induce accelerated wear and/or of aging on a wide range of products and materials.
Case 1- Train Heating System
A passenger train company has its coach cars modified to have a radiant heating system through its walls. Unfortunately, after a few winter months, the cosmetic carpet lining in the cars starts blistering with sections up to 5 inches in diameter peeling off the wall.
Air samples were taken out of the blisters for chemical analyses; nothing but air could be found. An 8 feet long train wall section was mocked up at Micom Laboratories in one of our climatic chambers. Thermocouples were inserted at different locations and the heating system used in the cars was cycled using a computer. By simulating an accelerated use the problem could be recreated in the lab. The lab then worked with our customer design team to validate a new assembly test method that would not generate the same kind of problem.
Case 2 – Impact Resistance of Video Poker Screens
A customer has a high occurrence of field failures on his video poker screens and asks us to investigate the problem. We get old and new screens and create a test simulating somebody hitting the screen with his fist.
We start impacting the screens with greater and greater impacts until failures start occurring and compare the impact forces. Our results showed that our customer’s supplier of impact protective films had changed its formulation and was offering a lower performance product.
Micom also offers consulting services.
Custom Testing – Related Services
The first question our experts ask themselves when we get a special test request is “Is there a standardized test method that we can start from?” In many cases, there are existing test methods we can use as a basis. For a quick perusal of these standardized services: Material testing Lab,Accelerated aging, Environmental Testing, Package Testing, ASTM testing.
*Weather-Ometer®️ is a registered trademark of Atlas Material Testing Technology LLC
Our Services by Test Type
Practical UV Testing Guide
Sunlight exposure can have harmful impacts on carbon-based
materials such as coatings, polymers, textiles, and many others.
Learn more about our in-laboratory UV testing process in this guide.
