UK firm offers foam-pounding unit

By David Reed, UT EditorKettering, England-SATRA-Hampden, developer and supplier of testing equipment, has a new foam-pounding machine for testing the dynamic fatigue properties of flexible polyurethane foams. The unit can test high-, medium- and low-density foams, and can also be programmed to apply non-standard loadings and cycling speeds, SATRA-Hampden said in a 1 Feb announcement.Specifically developed for the Japanese market, which has recently adopted ISO standards, the STM-536 unit applies a load of 750 Newtons at a rate of 70 cycles per minute via an indentor of 250 mm radius, as required by the ISO 3385 standard. The automatic machine is microprocessor controlled and continuously monitors each cycle, measuring and displaying the results digitally on a control screen, along with the maximum load deviation and the number of completed cycles.The machine can be supplied as either free-standing or bench mounted, with a single station using 0.75 square metres of floor space, and weighs about 75kg. The machine complements SATRA-Hampden's range of PU foam test instruments This comprises indentometers, for measuring indentation hardness (ISO 2439), tensile testers, soft materials thickness gauges, and porosity meters.For more details, contact the company at Email: [email protected]"