Aston Features and News

Okay, so T-Rex fossil bones are not made of metal and they didn’t have implants, but stay tuned for future updates on how metallurgy is involved.

The native inhabitants of Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois made use of float copper from Lake Gitche Gumee (Lake Superior) as far as back as 6500 BC. The copper was pure and used for personal adornment as well as simple tools and trading. Microstructural examinations revealed the artifacts were annealed as well as hot forged. Who knew the local metal working and heat treating industry was 8500 years old?

ASTON continues to host ASM Materials Camps. These summer camps introduce high school juniors and seniors to materials science and failure analysis. The students attend lectures at local universities and colleges, go on field trips to local manufacturers and are challenged to perform a hands on failure analysis in our lab. With the guidance of volunteer staff, they learn to use laboratory equipment and reference collections to solve their problem. They discover their most important tool in the laboratory is not all of the fancy equipment they find in our lab, but their own minds. They always do great!

Material science is so important to human development that our progress is defined by the materials available to the civilizations at the time. We went from paleolithic (old stone age), neolithic (new stone age), copper age, bronze age and iron age to the current atomic age.

Hardness testing is the easiest test to perform in our lab. but, no pun intended, it can be one of the hardest tests to do. Properly, that is.

Hardness is a property determined by measuring the resistance to deformation to the applied load perpendicularly indenting into the sample as expressed by the depth of penetration. The penetration is measured by a depth gauge and translated into a hardness number. It is crucial to realize that all conventional hardness testing methods involve sampling a volume of material. The amount of material actually sampled is a function of the indentor selected, the applied load and the material properties. If the sampled volume is limited by the physical size of the piece to be tested, then you may actually be sampling the underlying anvil or pushing out the edge of the sample. More

A pinhole corrosion problem in copper pipe required an on-site inspection in central Vermont. We took a few extra days to tour through New Hampshire and Maine and have photos to share. Highlights included touring through Ben & Jerry's, Montpelier, Woodstock, Portsmouth, Fort Constitution, tidal pools at Acadia National Park, whale watching from Rye and the VINS raptor rehabilitation sanctuary.

With the infinitesimally slow cooling rate in space and the incredible impact required to launch them towards Earth, metallic meteorites have fascinating microstructures unlike anything naturally produced on Earth. We wish we had more time to explore these jewels from space! Stay tuned as we add more meteorites to our collection and post our favorite micrographs.

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Aston Metallurgical Services Company, Inc.  •  200 Larkin Drive  •  Wheeling, IL 60090-6498
Toll Free: 888-ASTON10 (888-278-6610)  •  Email: Alan Stone, President  •  Fax: 847-353-8204
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