Page 5 - Shimadzu Journal vol.2 Issue3

Insight from a customer

During my visit to Russia, there was also a Shimadzu fair taking place The goal is to understand the fatigue performance and failure
where I presented my results obtained in industrial research projects mechanisms with the help of new measurement techniques on the
carried out using Shimadzu systems (Picture 3). basis of a small number of tests, to support industry in optimizing
their process chain parameters regarding optimized component
From the current year, I’m acting as a Visiting Professor at FEFU properties. The desired local component property should be reached
University. Besides the presentation of a fatigue course, an exchange on the basis of a well-understood structure-property relationship.
of PhD students was agreed upon. The first PhD candidate from FEFU Besides, the determination of the influence of corrosion on the fatigue
visited WPT in December, 2013 for experimental investigations properties and corrosion fatigue properties as well as corrosion
concerning the fatigue performance of glass-metal composites. prevention procedures are a further central research topic at WPT.

In the meantime I visited many colleagues working together with
Shimadzu:
Shimadzu in Germany and Europe. In January, 2014, I was invited for How are our instruments helping you?
a Shimadzu International Sales Meeting to illustrate the basics of
fatigue and lifetime prediction to sales representatives.
Prof. Walther:
As I know from many projects, fatigue assessment is much more than The instruments and the installed, Shimadzu as well as self-developed,
collecting conventional Woehler lines, as especially industrial softwares build the fundamental basis for experimental investigations
companies look for new time- and cost-effective testing approaches. (Picture 4). From WPT staff and many student workers, I know that
WPT has patented the so-called “Rapid Fatigue Performance especially the autograph software is very customized and
Identification Method (RAPID)” which works successfully for all self-explanatory. Excellent hardware and software quality are
investigated metals as well as polymer- and wood-based composites. important criteria for the successful use of instruments to reach
The idea of RAPID is to estimate fatigue characteristics in short time precise results in research and industry projects with minimum efforts.
for process-oriented manufacturing. RAPID allows to calculate the
Woehler line on the basis of one multiple step test and two single step Shimadzu:
tests. The basics are presented in Walther, 2014, see below.
What are Shimadzu’s strengths compared to other competitor
companies (not limited to the instruments) ?

Prof. Walther:
One of the Shimadzu strengths is to have a complete range of testing
systems required for optimized investigations in research and industry.
Besides the quality and capability of testing devices, I appreciate the
close relationship to Shimadzu Europa headquarter. The European
testing material team understands the demands of research institutes
and supports us in a proper way. So we quickly learned that Shimadzu
is treating their customers not only as a client, but as real partners. I
am also deeply impressed about the high professional skills of the
support team and the service engineers. The network serves as an
ideal platform for information exchange and user discussions, also in
Picture 3: Prof. Walther (fifth from the right), Prof. Pogodaev the sense of new developments together with customers. Being
(fourth from the right) and Shimadzu staff at comprehensive and communicative to its customers is the core
competitive asset of Shimadzu.
Shimadzu fair, Vladivostok, Russia
Shimadzu:
Shimadzu: Finally, could you share any requests that you have with respect to
Why are you interested in this research? What is the goal? analytical and measuring instrument vendors?
Prof. Walther:
Prof. Walther: Actually, everybody in the fatigue community speaks about Very High
th
Mechanical properties are combined with microstructure or Cycle Fatigue. In this year there is the 6 International Conference on
microstructural changes due to production process and in-service Very High Cycle Fatigue (VHCF6) in Chengdu, China. I was very
loading. In this sense, microstructure could be understood as a surprised when I heard that Shimadzu has a USF-2000 device in its
fingerprint of the component properties and new non-destructive portfolio. I am sure that this is not well-known in Germany, so
measuring techniques allow to describe the relation between marketing efforts and representation at prestigious conferences
microstructure and properties. should be increased.

During my PhD, I worked on the fatigue assessment of ICE train In case of lightweight alloys, the crash behavior is mandatory for
wheels, as there was the Eschede (Germany) accident in 1998. My industrial applications. Due to CE reasons, the HITS system, which I
research topics are: quenched and tempered high strength steels for used in Kyoto for tests up to 20 m/s with a force up to 10 kN is
highly loaded parts, stainless steels for chemical plants, cast irons, unfortunately not available in German market.
lightweight metals as aluminium, magnesium and titanium, and
recently carbon-fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) and wood-based I would recommend Shimadzu to proceed in the same way regarding
composites like vulcanized fiber. Additionally, joining techniques like quality of products and qualification of engineers, but to transfer
friction-stir welding, brazing and bonding are investigated. more systems from Japan to Germany and increase marketing,
especially for instruments needed in current research topics, and

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