OUR VISION
The lightweight construction approach to product design is an essential part of any vehicle construction (for both surface and air transport) and is more and more applied to a wide range of components. The lightweight construction technologies are being applied and will be applied even more in the future to civil engineering.
For the development of lightweight products, specific equipment is required for testing and characterizing materials and components. The LIDUP Lab provides a fundamental facility to develop any mid-size lightweight product. From the scientific point of view, one of the European Research Council evaluation panel (PE8_13) refers to lightweight construction.
The awareness of lightweight materials properties allows to design innovative products. LIDUP Lab provides facilities for the preparation of materials based on graphene and carbon nanotubes as high performance components of lightweight materials.
OUR MISSION
The LiDuP Lab provides both experimental and theoretical support to industry, in the framework of Industry 4.0 scheme.
Experimental support: the LIDUP Lab is able to test components subject to thermal, environmental (humidity), sunlight and mechanical stresses simultaneously at a scale which is that of a medium-size component. In particular, the LIDUP Laboratory provides data for both product development and testing of complex components (for example, elastic bushings, suspension arms of vehicles, components of civil structures, various kinds of consumer objects, etc). The LIDUP Lab provides the experimental assessment of the variation of the physical characteristics during the lifetime of the component (durability performance). The LIDUP Lab has also facilities dedicated to the functionalization of sp2 carbon allotropes, such as graphene and carbon nanotubes: tuning of their solubility parameter allows to achieve even dispersion and intimate interaction with liquid and polymer matrices. The LIDUP Lab is unique in Italy (and perhaps, in the proposed configuration, in Europe).
Theoretical support: the LIDUP Lab provides designing and understanding of experimental tests based on proprietary and commercial software pertaining to: continuum mechanics and mechanics of materials, multi-body systems dynamics, optimization theory, vehicle dynamics. Additionally, materials and chemical issues are dealt with both at the macro and nano scale. To answer the challenging issues referring to Lightweight Construction and Durability Performance, competences from three different Departments of the Politecnico di Milano have been gathered:
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING “GIULIO NATTA” (DCMC)
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING (DICA)
DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING (DMEC)
TESTING CONDITIONS
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Component size up to 1000 x 500 x 1500 mm (or more with proper setup arrangement)
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Temperature and humidity control (from -70 to +180 °C, from 5% to 90% RH)
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UV lamp (on request)
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4 or more hydraulic actuators for simultaneous loading (dynamic loading up to 170 kN, frequency depending on test setup)
SERVICES
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Static testing
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Fatigue testing
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Thermal testing
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Combined thermo-mechanical testing
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Durability testing
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Functionalization of sp2 carbon allotropes and macrosamples preparation