Faster, Smarter, and Safer Material Testing: Meet the New Apex 1 from Waters CorporationFaster, Smarter, and Safer Material Testing: Meet the New Apex 1 from Waters Corporation

This week at MD&M West in Anaheim, CA, the TA Instruments division of Waters Corporation is launching its new ElectroForce Apex 1 mechanical testing instrument.

The new testing instrument is designed for increased versatility, speed, and ease of use to support precise tensile and fatigue testing of high-performance and lightweight polymers and composites.

MD+DI caught up with Andy Simon, product manager at the TA Instruments division of Waters Corporation, to see the ElectroForce Apex 1 in action at the show.

"This is our new ElectoForce Apex 1. It’s a dynamic, versatile instrument for mechanical testing on fatigue and monotonic or tensile tests as well as a variety of other tests," Simon said. "It has 43% more stroke than the competition, it can complete tests up to 30% faster, and it has a highly automated workflow greatly simplifying the user experience, making it easier for labs to get this capability into their labs and begin using the instrument."

Material strength and durability testing is increasingly important for accelerating the development of products in demanding applications such as those in the medical device, polymer, aerospace, automotive, and additive manufacturing industries. The increased motor stroke range and testing speed can reduce costs early in development by helping users to identify and eliminate weaknesses in material selection and design before the validation or post-launch phase. 

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“As an additive manufacturing company, we build 3D-printed polymer parts that are increasingly being used in highly demanding applications where strength and durability are essential," said Javier Ramos, chief technology officer at Inkbit. "After one short training session, we were able to use the ElectroForce Apex 1 Instrument to easily conduct tensile and fatigue testing to characterize our new materials. The ease of use and quick time to results have given us the confidence to explore a greater range of materials, testing the limits of our manufactured materials and processes.”

Yu Cheng, vice president of research and development and product solutions at the TA Instruments division of Waters, emphasized the increased importance and need for simple, accurate, and affordable mechanical testing as manufacturers pivot toward developing and using more high-quality sustainable materials.

"The ElectroForce Apex 1 Instrument was designed for customers looking for precise, safe, and reliable testing to inform material selection and design, as well as component and product performance assessments," Cheng said.

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Designed to reduce operator process steps and errors, the ElectroForce Apex 1 Instrument comes equipped with new software features, including TuneIQ technology, which can automatically tune the instrument without operator intervention and without additional, invasive stress or strain applied to the sample. The new motor control system improves break-stop capabilities during mechanical testing, increasing workflow options and operator confidence to run longer experiments unsupervised, including overnight. The instrument also comes with intelligent data acquisition to help prevent computer hard drive overload by selecting test-specific data parameters and limiting collection to more critical and manageable data.