Metallurgical Testing
Reliable and repeatable material validation is achieved through meticulous process control and investment in advanced metallurgical testing technologies. Our in-house laboratory performs comprehensive chemical, compositional, and mechanical analysis — including spectrographic testing, microstructural evaluation, tensile, hardness, impact, and hydrogen testing. These processes generate critical data to verify material integrity, optimise performance, and ensure compliance with aerospace, defence, and industrial quality standards.
ATAS MetStar Thermal Analysis & Melt Control
ATAS MetStar plays a vital role in our metallurgical process control, providing real-time thermal analysis to optimise melt quality before casting. By continuously monitoring key parameters, we ensure alloy consistency, prevent defects, and enhance overall casting integrity.
Our ATAS MetStar thermal analysis process includes:
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Melt Quality Control & Thermal Analysis – Provides real-time monitoring of solidification behaviour, cooling rates, and phase transformations, enabling early detection of micro and macro shrinkage porosity and chill tendency before casting.
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Alloy Optimisation & Chemical Adjustments – Analyses thermal properties and melt stability, allowing for precise chemical and thermal modifications that optimise alloy composition and energy efficiency, ensuring batch-to-batch consistency with minimal material waste.
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Defect Prediction & Process Stability – Uses advanced solidification modelling to predict and mitigate shrinkage, gas porosity, inverse chill tendency, and oxygen content, providing real-time feedback to adjust process parameters before defects form.
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Predictive Mechanical Property Estimation – Utilises dynamic thermal analysis models to estimate mechanical properties such as tensile strength, ductility, and hardness, ensuring consistent casting quality before pouring.
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Real-Time Process Optimisation & Repeatability – Provides instant metallurgical feedback, allowing operators to dynamically adjust melt conditions, improving process repeatability, reducing scrap rates, and enhancing energy efficiency in production.
ATAS MetStar is an integral part of our process control, ensuring each melt meets the highest standards of consistency, reliability, and efficiency, supporting high-performance manufacturing across aerospace, defence, and industrial applications.
Metallurgical Sample Preparation
Precise metallurgical sample preparation is essential for accurate microstructural, mechanical, and chemical analysis of our cast components. Using advanced linear abrasive cutting, grinding, and polishing technologies, our specialist MA-Qualified metallurgists prepare clean, undistorted samples and standardised test bars from ferrous and non-ferrous castings, ensuring reliable and repeatable testing.
Our high-precision sample preparation processes include:
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Abrasive Cutting for Metallurgical Analysis – Utilising our MetCut 330 linear abrasive cutting machines, we create clean, precise cross-sections of cast components for microstructural inspection and defect analysis, ensuring minimal deformation, heat damage, or contamination.
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Grinding & Polishing for Microscopic & Spectrographic Analysis – Using our OmegaPol preparation systems, we apply controlled grinding and polishing to achieve a smooth, oxide-free, scratch-free surface, ensuring accurate microstructural evaluation under high-magnification microscopy and precise elemental analysis using Optical Emission Spectrometry (OES).
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Mechanical Testing Specimen Preparation – Through precision sectioning and finishing, we produce dimensionally stable test bars and specimens for tensile, hardness, and impact testing, ensuring consistency with ASTM, ISO, and EN9100 aerospace industry standards.
By ensuring precision in sample preparation, we guarantee that every metallurgical test produces reliable, accurate data—validating material integrity, performance, and compliance for mission-critical applications.
Spectrographic Testing
Spectrographic testing provides precise chemical composition analysis of ferrous and non-ferrous alloys, ensuring complete material traceability and rigorous quality verification. Our specialist metallurgists utilise Optical Emission Spectrometry (OES) with advanced spectrometer technology to monitor material consistency throughout production.
Our high-precision spectrographic testing process includes:
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Real-Time Melt Sample Analysis – Conducted at multiple stages of production to verify that the chemical composition of cast materials aligns with design and performance requirements, ensuring process control and consistency.
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Optical Emission Spectrometry (OES) for Alloy Verification – Using ARTUS 8 and POLY SPEC NEO spectrometers, we perform high-accuracy alloy verification and trace element detection, ensuring batch consistency and precise nitrogen content control where required.
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Contaminant Detection & Impurity Analysis – Identifies and quantifies unwanted elements such as sulphur, phosphorus, and oxygen, which can affect mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, and overall cast integrity.
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Comprehensive Alloy Validation – Conducts in-depth verification across a wide range of alloy types and production batches, ensuring metallurgical integrity in aerospace, defence, and industrial applications.
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Full Process Traceability & Compliance – All spectrographic data is recorded, analysed, and documented, forming a critical foundation for further metallurgical testing and ensuring repeatability, consistency, and compliance with ASTM, ISO, and aerospace EN9100 standards.
By ensuring accurate spectrographic analysis, materials meet stringent performance, durability, and compliance requirements, ensuring adherence to customer engineering specifications and aerospace, defence, and industrial quality standards.
Mechanical Testing
Mechanical testing is essential for verifying the strength, durability, and performance of our cast components. From our aerospace-certified metallurgical lab, we conduct in-house tensile, hardness, and impact testing to ensure every material meets client specifications for mission-critical applications.
Our high-precision mechanical testing process includes:
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Tensile Testing – Measures ultimate tensile strength, yield strength, and elongation to assess how materials behave under uniaxial load. This confirms that castings meet their required load-bearing capabilities.
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Hardness Testing – Determines a material’s resistance to indentation and surface wear, using established methods such as Brinell, Rockwell, and Vickers, selected according to alloy type and application. Hardness testing provides valuable insight into material strength, durability, and wear resistance.
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Impact Testing – Evaluates a material’s toughness and ability to absorb energy under sudden loading, typically using Charpy impact testing. This is critical for assessing performance in safety-critical or low-temperature environments, where brittle fracture must be avoided.
All testing is performed in accordance with recognised international standards and our EN9100-certified quality management system, ensuring full material validation, repeatability, and compliance.
Microscopic Testing
Microscopic testing plays a critical role in evaluating the microstructural characteristics of ferrous and non-ferrous materials. Using high-precision metallurgical microscopes and advanced image analysis software, Finecast conducts detailed inspections to ensure material integrity and defect-free casting quality.
Our high-precision microscopic testing process includes:
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Microstructural Evaluation – Examines grain size, phase distribution, and inclusions to assess mechanical properties and material homogeneity, ensuring consistency in casting quality.
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Failure Analysis & Defect Detection – Identifies microscopic cracks, porosity, and structural anomalies, enabling root cause analysis and corrective actions to enhance material reliability.
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Quality Control & Specification Compliance – Verifies that cast components meet strict metallurgical specifications, ensuring dimensional stability and conformance to engineering requirements.
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Advanced Image Analysis & Digital Microscopy – Uses high-resolution imaging software to quantify grain structure, detect phase transformations, and measure inclusion distribution, providing precise material insights.
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Comprehensive Reporting & Process Validation – Provides detailed documentation and traceability records, ensuring full compliance with customer requirements and industry certifications.
By ensuring meticulous microscopic analysis, Finecast guarantees structural integrity, defect-free castings, and enhanced material performance, ensuring compliance with aerospace, defence, and industrial quality standards.
Hydrogen Testing
At Finecast, our Hydrogen Analysis process ensures the integrity and quality of aluminium castings by monitoring and controlling dissolved hydrogen levels in molten metal. Using the Hydralvac 6000 system, we identify and prevent hydrogen-induced defects, such as porosity and embrittlement, ensuring high-performance and defect-free cast components.
Our high-precision hydrogen analysis process includes:
- Straube-Pfeiffer Test Implementation – Measures the density of a solidified metal sample under partial vacuum, allowing for accurate hydrogen content assessment in aluminium melts.
- Real-Time Monitoring & Process Control – Provides continuous measurement of dissolved hydrogen, allowing for early detection and correction of casting defects.
- Degassing Efficiency Validation – Verifies the effectiveness of hydrogen removal treatments, ensuring optimal metal quality before casting.
- Porosity & Embrittlement Prevention – Controls hydrogen levels to minimise gas-related defects, improving mechanical properties and structural reliability.
- Full Process Integration – Supports high-integrity manufacturing, ensuring aluminium castings meet performance, durability, and compliance standards.
By integrating Hydrogen Analysis into our quality control process, Finecast ensures that all aluminium castings are free from gas-related defects, delivering consistent, high-integrity components for mission-critical applications.
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Contact our team to discuss the design, engineering, and manufacturing of complex, high-integrity components for high-performance and safety-critical applications.