Swedish spring specialist invests in new laboratory for material and spring testing for product development
The Lesjöfors Group has made important investments in further developing its capabilities in materials and spring development. The new laboratory focuses on spring tests and material tests in different areas. This has been expanded from a smaller spring lab with skilled staff into a dedicated center for research and development.
The material lab includes equipment for test preparation such as cutting, casting, grinding, polishing and etching. After the sample is prepared, hardness testing with Vickers at loads ranging from 10g to 10kg can be done and the metallurgical characteristics can be studied at up to 1000x magnification in a light microscope.
According to Stefan Musslinder of Lesjöfors, it is important to increase the company’s understanding of how different materials work in different situations and applications in order to be able to offer material choices that are optimal for future springs.
In the spring lab, staff can investigate individual springs’ properties, such as fatigue properties, relaxation, creep and elasticity limits, but also secondary phenomena such as side loads, stability and load symmetry.
“The purpose of the lab is partly to meet an increasing need for testing from our customers, but above all for us to be able to develop our production processes and increase our knowledge of springs and materials. We hope that the test lab will become a European centre for spring development in the future,” concludes Musslinder.