The Westinghouse engineers, technicians and staff who specialize in evaluations through laboratory testing of irradiated and non-irradiated materials provide experimental evidence to support materials and processing solutions for its customers while supporting industry technical initiatives.
The materials group performs laboratory evaluations in Churchill, Pennsylvania (USA), for a wide range of customers, supporting all of the Westinghouse product lines and specializing in material evaluations and testing that include hot cell capabilities, microstructural characterization and chemical processing.
In addition to the Westinghouse product lines, the materials group supports utilities worldwide, the Electric Power Research Institute, the U.S. Department of Energy (predominantly through the U.S. National Laboratories), the Pressurized Water Reactor Owners Group, and other commercial and non-commercial organizations worldwide.
The materials group performs mechanical testing and micro-structural characterization of:
Typical mechanical testing capabilities include:
Materials testing and evaluation capabilities included:
Mechanical testing of Charpy V-notch, tensile/slow strain-rate tensile, fracture toughness and crack growth specimens is accomplished by:
These testing capabilities provide data to more thoroughly assess the effects of irradiation on material toughness.
Mechanical test frames ranging from 6,750 to 100,000 lb load capacity