The Grimsby Institute of FHE: RAPID, ACCURATE HARDNESS TESTING ROUTINES

Based at the impressive Nuns Corner campus and two additional principal sites, The Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education is a general further education college offering full and part-time Further Education, a growing higher education provision, training for business, education in the community and commercial activities.

With a role of more than 22,500 students in the 2006/07 academic year, the Institute employs approximately 1,350 staff, and is now the third largest employer in the North East Lincolnshire region.

The institute’s excellent Fabrication and Welding Department offers a range of high quality courses from apprenticeship programmes through to Engineering Construction Industry Training Board professional qualifications. Courses are available for school leavers entering the field, through to professional welders who wish to up-date their skills. The busy department is equipped with all of the equipment found in modern light/heavy fabrication industrial environments, including a wide range of brake presses and guillotines.

A recent search by Fabrication & Welding Tutor, Phil Sutton for a modern digital replacement for the Department’s aging analogue hardness tester resulted in the purchase of an advanced CV-700 Universal Hardness Tester from Bowers Metrology.

Phil explained. “Rather than base the hardness testing modules of our courses on theory alone, as with all aspects of our activities, we passionately believe that our students should gain real ‘hands-on’ practical hardness testing experience. Because of the diverse nature of the hardness tests we perform, our proposed replacement hardness tester needed to perform rapid, accurate hardness testing routines in Rockwell, Brinell and Vickers scales and have a clear digital display with a monitor that could be viewed by an entire group of students.

Having considered several alternative machines, we decided that the impressive CV 700 from Bowers Metrology best met all of our criteria. Now in daily operation, the new unit’s easy to operate controls enable all of our students to quickly master simple post heat treatment testing routines and to fully understand their findings. Currently used by Day Release apprentices on EAL level 3 Fabrication and Welding Advanced Diploma courses, the use of the CV 700 will soon be rolled-out for use in other courses such as our 14 – 19 Engineering Diploma Group ”

Intended to withstand use within harsh industrial environments, Bowers easy to use CV 700 dead-weight bench tester continues to grow in popularity within UK academia.  Conforming to DIN-E-ISO 6506, 6507, 6508, and ASTM, the advanced unit boasts a rugged design and is able to accommodate large specimens. To aid accuracy and help eliminate backlash from the system, the tester’s elevating spindle boasts precision guide bushes, containing high precision bearings, whilst the flexible universal tester has a table that can be easily moved between indenter and its high-quality measuring microscope with magnification by objective lenses 37.5x and 70x.

For more information about Bowers range of Hardness Testers, click here.

Published on June 04, 2009 13:54 updated on November 10, 2010 12:12