A variety of small experiments by which students can gain experience in the laboratory techniques are carried out to investigate basic radiation- interaction phenomena, radiation detector physics, particle and photon measurements, vacuum pumping technology and gauge operation, microwave interactions with materials and plasmas, laboratory plasma production including electrical breakdown phenomena, Langmuir probe characteristics, and spectroscopy. Brief lectures and literature references to elucidate the physical bases of the laboratory work are included. The system has a resolution of 30 angstroms. This is a fully equipped corrosion science and mechanical properties laboratory. Additionally, the laboratory has a scanning electron microscope laboratory which includes X-ray microanalysis and image analysis capability.
Programs involve basic studies concerning the environmental degradation of all materials.
The laboratory is equipped for electrochemical measurements in aqueous systems at temperatures from room temperature to 350 degrees C. Mechanical behavior testing can be conducted in all environments. Corrosion fatigue, stress corrosion cracking, hydrogen embrittlement, pitting, and other corrosion related tests are easily accomplished. The laboratory is fully equipped for the study of tensile, fatigue, creep, and environmentally enhanced materials degradation behavior. It is available for studying slow time varying phenomena in liquid media in the range of microsecond to second. Spatial Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratory NMR methods are some of the most promising nondestructive approaches to the simultaneous study of the spatial distribution and the chemical composition of small features in amorphous materials.