Overview

Wave simulators and water tanks mimic aquatic conditions including wave and tidal currents providing a controlled and safe environment for product testing. It is more cost effective to test smaller-scale units in a wave tank compared to building a full scale unit and finding design errors at an advanced stage.

There are several different types of water tanks and wave simulators which vary in size and shape offering the right solution to solve your business challenge.

These specialist facilities are built to industry standards and can support offshore wind, wave and tidal energy systems, floating devices, oil & gas and marine operations.

Overview

Will your products be exposed to different environments or climates? Temperature chambers provide extreme temperature profiles to test how products will react in different conditions.

Maybe your product will be exported around the world and will have to cope with conditions that aren’t easy to replicate in the UK. If so you can test your products resilience in a safe and controlled scientific environment.

There are lots specialist facilities that replicate different environmental conditions such a humidity, pressure, altitude, vibration, radiation, water and air quality, light, wind and noise.

Overview

Strength testing is a fundamental materials science test to examine how a material will react under force. It is vital you test your product strength to ensure it withstands the forces it will be subjected to.

Three strength tests will determine the physical performance of your material; tensile testing looks at how much a material can be stretched, impact testing records a materials resistance and flex testing demonstrates how easily your material bends.

There are many more specialist facilities that can test your materials from temperature chambers and vibration plates to wind tunnels, pressure chambers and wave simulators.

Overview

Pressure chambers or hyperbaric pressure vessels will test whether your products are durable and safe enough to withstand potentially hazardous conditions such as deep water in a simulated safe and controlled environment.

There are dedicated staff with experience in testing within high standards of safe practice and these testing services have supported numerous industry partners who have their products working out in the field.

There are many tests that can be carried out to test the properties of materials from strength testers, vibration plates, wind tunnels and temperature chambers to wave simulators.

Overview

Hi-tech modeling and simulation software allows you to create 3D visual representations to check how your product might behave before actually creating your physical prototype.

These techniques are widely adopted throughout design, process and manufacturing to optimise early product research and development results. Using modeling and simulation can reduce waste, costs and time while increasing the quality of physical prototypes and final products.

The technical experts will be able to perform a wide range of activities from creating virtual representations of your product or system right through to mathematical modeling of the product performance.

Overview

There is an extensive range of microscopes throughout our HEI’s which offer comprehensive analysis of materials providing detailed 2D and 3D images which are well beyond the resolution of the naked eye.

Examples of the different types of microscopes available include; transmission electron, scanning electron, confocal laser scanning, optical, fluorescence, scanning probe, ultraviolet and infrared microscopy.

Whether your subject matter is biological, chemical or material the specialist teams have the knowledge and expertise to guide you to the equipment that is best suited to your requirements.

Overview

Mass Spectrometry is a powerful analytical chemistry tool which is used to determine the quantity and type of chemicals present in a sample which can be solid, liquid or gas form.

Mass spectrometers can be used across biotechnology, pharmaceutical, environmental and geological applications to analyse samples from proteins to drug discovery and testing to water quality, contamination and oil composition.

The different types of Mass Spectrometers include; accelerator mass spectrometers, biomolecular mass spectrometers, gas chromatography mass spectrometers, liquid chromatography mass spectrometers and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers.

Overview

Human performance labs use cameras to capture motion to analyse body movement such as kinetics, pressure, posture, energy expenditure, gait analysis and even body composition.

Taking these types of measurements can help to understand movements of the human body which can be used to improve patient care. The outputs can also be used for the rapid prototyping of novel devices e.g. orthopedic inserts designed to individual patient’s requirements.

Human performance labs can also be used to animate digital character models. Precise measurements allow more lifelike motion, complex movements and longer movement sequences to be animated.

Overview

Eye tracking software is a popular psychology technique which is used to provide customer reaction for research and product development purposes.

This high-tech equipment can be used to support a number of different sectors from medical research to consumer product testing where packaging, labels, marketing materials and in-store product positioning can be optimised from the results.

Eye tracking can be used alongside other facilities such as sensory suites, colour psychophysics and emotions labs to gather a complete picture of consumer reactions.