Nanoporous Materials & Mechanics Laboratory

Our lab hosts state-of-the-art equipment for mechanical testing and material synthesis & processing, and also has access to a wide range of material characterisation facilities on campus and synchrotron central facilities. These facilities allow us to design and make materials, test and characterise materials, understand exciting science and develop novel applications.

Synthesis & Processing

Our lab is equipped with a wide range of material and chemistry facilities, including a fume hood, centrifuge, vacuum oven (200 °C), oven (300 °C), furnace (1300 °C), planetary ball mill, spark-free fridge, microscope, analytical balances, hot plate stirrers, ultrasonic bath, chemical cabinet, desiccator, laminar flow cabinet, autoclaves, high-rate infrared detector, thermometer, UV lamp, digital refractometer, etc.

Mechanical Testing

Our lab hosts a wide range of mechanical testing equipment:

Quasi-static: Instron 10 kN, <1 s-1

Deben 5kN for in-situ testing

Medium-rate dynamic: High-force DMA 7.5 kN, 10s s-1
High-speed impact: Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB): 1,000s s-1

Imaging Techniques

We have a range of high-speed cameras to accompany mechanical testing and other experiments:

Ultra-high-speed camera Shimadzu HPV-X2 (max 10M fps; 5M fps at full resolution)
High-speed colour camera Photron FASTCAM NOVA S12 (max 1M fps; 12,800 fps at full resolution)
High-speed infrared thermal camera Telops FAST M3k (max 100k fps; 3,100 fps at full resolution)

Material Characterisation

We have a Benchtop Powder X-ray Diffractometer (PANalytical Aeris 600 W (40 kV / 15 mA).
Besides, we have access to a wide range of shared facilities on campus: Nano-Indentation, Electron Microscopy (SEM/TEM), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman Spectroscopy, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Gas Adsorption (BET), etc.

Central Facilities

Our work is supported by central facilities for beam time in Diamond Light Source (Diamond) and European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), allowing us to look into the science at the atomic level and complementing our macro-/meso- scale lab work and simulations.