Materials Laboratory and Large-Scale Testing Facility

Materials Laboratory and Large-Scale Testing Facility

SOCOTEC’s fully accredited Materials Laboratory and Large-Scale Testing Facility, located in Brooklyn provides value-added services to our efforts. The original laboratory was founded in the late 1800's as a materials consultant to the growing industrial base in the New York City area. Over a century later, the materials science and engineering expertise remains the foundation upon which all of our services are built.  

We offer round-the-clock support during emergencies, with a staff of technicians, engineers and scientists backed by SOCOTEC’s worldwide industry experience. We work closely with our clients to provide timely answers to complex problems.

Laboratory Capabilities

SOCOTEC offers a full range of services for materials testing and evaluations, component and system evaluations, and simulations for failure/root cause analysis, machine and structural design, troubleshooting and problem-solving. The Brooklyn facility includes a fully equipped machine shop. Low-level irradiated and contaminated components can be evaluated through our Massachusetts annex.

Materials Testing and Evaluation

• Complete material range (metals, concrete, polymers and composites)
• Material selection and characterization
• Mechanical testing
• Electrical testing
• Visual inspections, optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy
• Chemical analysis
• EDS analysis
• Hardness and Microhardness testing
• Aging and materials degradation—corrosion, erosion, wear, fracture, fatigue, creep, thermal and microbiological effects

Component and system evaluation

• Structural (e.g., strength testing, vibrations)
• Mechanical (e.g., rotating equipment, pressure vessels, valves)
• Electrical (e.g., conductors, insulators and insulations, jackets, motors, solenoids, transformers and fuses, analog and digital equipment)

Simulations

• Full-scale and scaled testing of mechanical systems, fluid systems, and components
• Mockups
• Environmental simulations
• Accelerated aging
• Finite element analysis (FEA) and computation fluid dynamic (CFD) modeling

Failure/root cause analysis

• Troubleshooting and problem solving
• Fully equipped machine shop

Field Services 

In addition to our laboratory capabilities, SOCOTEC provides mobile nondestructive services such as radiography, ultrasonic testing, eddy current, magnetic particle, liquid dye penetrant, and leak testing on a 24-hr. basis.  We offer complete field measurement and data acquisition services—strain gages, thermocouples, LVDT's, high level output transducers and accelerometers, fiberoptic monitoring, digital image correlation, high-speed photography, fluid transient measurements, and corrosion rates.