Equipment

AEROSPACE:

• ACUTRONIC SIMEX®TWO 2-axis motion simulator with Hardware-In-the-Loop capabilities, removable temperature chamber and 45 kg maximum payload for modeling and calibration of MEMS inertial sensors and stabilized platforms testing.
  • Maximum acceleration: 10000 / 200  [º/s2]
  • Maximum speed: 2200 /500  [º/s]
  • Temperature range: -50 to 115 [ºC]
• Test bed for the development of GNSS systems attitude determination and antenna calibration, including a high-precision 2-axis rotary table.
• GPS receivers:
  • Septentrio PolarRx2e@ L1/L2 multi-antenna with attitude determination capability.
  • Novatel PROPAK-V3-L1 with external oscillator input and RTK software.
  • Novatel OEMV1 with pseudorange measurements and 20 Hz update rate.
  • Garmin GPS 18 low-cost receiver with pseudorange measurements.
  • Magellan AC12 low-cost receiver with pseudorange measurements.
  • Skytrak Venus 6 chipset receiver with pseudorange measurements and 20 Hz update rate.
• Trimble Thunderbolt-e GPS synchronized oscillator.
• MEMS technology Inertial Navigation Systems:
  • Atlantic Inertial SiNAV.
  • Crossbow NAV440.
  • Raw MEMS gyro and accelerometer sensors.

INSTRUMENTAL:

• Inverted metallurgical microscope, equipped with brightfield, darkfield, polarization and differential interference contrast techniques. Specimen preparations.
• High resolution digital camera and image analysis software.
• Stereomicroscope.
• Digital Vickers microhardness tester.
• Universal Mechanical Testing Machine.
• Incubator: Chamber with humidity and termperature control (cement setting).
• Marsh funnel: Measurement of the fluidity and homogeneity of cements.
• Vicat needles: Determination of cement setting.

ADVANCED MATERIALS:

• Mini Spray Dyer: (advanced technique of drying): Microencapsulation of materials, atomization of liquids, production of solid particles at microscale, transformation of liquids (solutions, emulsions) into dry micro powder, dispersion of nanomaterials into microparticles, etc.
• Atomic Force Microscope (AFM): High resolution technique to analyse materials at nanometric scale. Images and topography. Electrical, magnetic, thermal and mechanical properties. Nanolithography.
• Thermal conductivity analyser, specific heat, diffusivity and effusivity of any kind of material, whether solid, liquid, paste or powder.
• Viscosimeter: Viscosity measurements (range: from 250 cP up to 100M cP).
• Densimeter: Density measurements of solid and liquid materials.
• Homogenizer: Preparation of emulsions and dispersions.
• Programmable muffle furnace: Maximum temperature 1100ºC.
• Programmable oven: Maximum temperature 250ºC.
• Mechanical stirrer: Dispersion of fillers/additives within matrices using high shear forces technique.
• Resin infusion technique: Processing of thermoset polymeric materials.