Brewster NY- the Powers Engineering Lab utilizes a high powered scanning electron microscope

(SEM) and x-ray chemical analysis to design proprietary steel specifications for concrete anchor products. It has been used by Powers with many products including the SD1 Wedge Anchor, ETA-1 Through-bolt and varieties of the Blue Tip Wedge-bolt (Screw-bolt) - the new stringent testing and approval standards for concrete anchors such as those mandated by the American Concrete Institute, ICC-ES, ETA and Underwriters Laboratories require anchoring products with not only good “pull-out” behaviour as was checked in the past, but also proper control of additional material properties such as fatigue resistance, susceptibility to embrittlement and ductility.

Most aspects of material quality control focus on checking the incoming material, reviewing raw material test certificates and performing incoming material mechanical tests. However, many typical manufacturing processes for concrete anchors such as cold-forming and heat-treating create marked changes in the raw material properties.

As a result Powers has taken material quality control to the next level by using the SEM to control material at a molecular level in product development. The SEM is utilized by both the R&D department during the development of new anchoring systems, and by the Quality Control department to ensure the continuing quality of the anchors in production. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) images metal anchors by scanning a surface with a high energy beam of electrons, which interacts with the atoms of the material producing signals that contain information about the samples topography and composition. Powers SEM is also equipped with energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) capability which allows for chemical analysis of the constituent raw materials of a sample by using a high acceleration voltage to excite the material at an atomic level and then analyse the x-rays emitted by the sample to determine its composition.

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