Wood and Corum, both materials engineers in ORNL's Engineering Technology Division, are studying the tensile strength of composite samples. Then they're exposed to The Machine. A high-tech version of the medieval torture rack, The Machine tugs on each sample up to 10 million times to simulate years of fatigue. Then it applies one final, fatal yank. A pile of samples, ripped raggedly apart, attests to The Machine's ruthless consistency.
Wood plucks a fragment from a heap on a table.
It weighs a fraction of what a similar piece of steel would weigh, yet its tensile strength isn't much less. Bit it's not quite that simple, says Wood. Corum's group will help auto designers predict with confidence. Besides looking at the long term, the Oak Ridge researchers are also looking at the extremely short term, seeking ways to mold composite parts far faster. They'd really like to get that down to one or two minutes.