Microsection (microscopy)
At a cut is a laboratory sample for more accurate assessment of material properties . The production of sections is part of destructive material testing .
Often the material properties of components have to be checked in order to e.g. B. to determine the cause of damage in the event of component failure or to control the processing methods in production. For this purpose, corresponding test pieces are cut out of the components to be examined - destroying the component - and these are then ground , lapped and polished . Often the smaller samples are embedded in plastic carriers for better handling. This usually also improves the quality of the cut significantly. For embedding, cold embedding for heat-sensitive samples, i.e. pouring the specimen placed in a mold in epoxy resin , and hot embedding, in which the specimen is mechanically embedded in melting thermoplastic granulate using pressure and temperature , are available.
Examples for creating sections :
- Examination of the structure of materials in the microscope
- Determination of the correct heat treatment by means of a hardness test , especially in the case of surface hardening processes .
- Determination of the degree of purity of metallic materials
- Measurement of moving parts that are fixed by the embedding, e.g. B. thinnest sealing lips of rubber seals in cross-section