Facilities

The Composite Materials and Engineering Center maintains and operates two facilities: The PACCAR building and the Research and Technology Park (RTP). These facilities house a large range of equipment and process capabilities from material processing and analysis to large-scale manufacturing to structural testing.

The PACCAR building is 35,000 sq.ft. of:

  • Large-scale structural testing
  • Universal test machines
  • Plastic extrusion
  • Physical and chemical property analyses
  • Materials and structural testing
  • Nondestructive evaluation
  • Rheology
  • Computer-based modeling and analysis

The Research Technology Park is a 28,000 sq.ft. facility that accommodates:

  • Furnish generation
  • Sorting, drying, blending, and forming
  • Consolidation
  • Hot panel pressing
  • Materials and structural testing
  • Nondestructive evaluation
  • Computer-based modeling and analysis
  • Cross-Laminated Timber pressing
PACCAR Building
Research Tech Park
Come Visit CMEC

Partial list of equipment & capabilities:

PACCAR Labs Washington State University, Tuesday, March, 9, 2021.

Materials and Structural Testing

  • Servo-hydraulic actuators with 10, 22, 56, 100, and 220 kip capacities
  • Servo-hydraulic axial test frames with 22 and 55 kip capacities with computer control and data acquisition
  • 200 kip tension-testing machine
  • 500 kip reaction floor with two 7.5-ton overhead cranes
  • 120 constant-load test frames (for time-dependent behavior)
  • 2 accelerated weathering chambers: Xenon arc and fluorescent UV with water spray
  • 5 controlled environment conditioning rooms (15’ x 23’)
  • 1 controlled environment conditioning chamber (64 c.f.) -50F to 300F temperature range 20% to 95% relative humidity range. Programmable cyclic controls.
  • 2, 20, 25 and 30 kip electromechanical universal test machines with computer control and data acquisition (smaller load cells available)
  • Dynisco Basic Pendulum Impact Tester
  • Variable Incidence Tribometer
PACCAR Labs Washington State University, Tuesday, March, 9, 2021.

Composite Manufacturing

  • Complete wood-plastic composite extrusion line with industry production rate capabilities
  • 35mm, 55mm, and 86mm conical twin screw extruders
  • 25mm single screw extruder
  • 18mm parallel twin screw extruder
  • Pellet mill
  • Multilayer film coextrusion line
  • Pultrusion system
  • 3 profile cooling units
  • 50-ton injection molding machine
  • HPL/LPL resin impregnator and development system
  • Computer-controlled hydraulic presses with oil-heated platens (4 by 8 ft., 3 by 3 ft.)
  • Celcum Extrudate Swell and Temperature Monitoring System with visible light micrometer and pyrometer temperature monitor
  • Fiber wet spinning line

Spectroscopic and Microscopic Analysis

  • Atomic force microscope (Veeco Multimode Picoforce) with high temperature and solution imaging kits
  • RMC cryo ultra microtome equipped with diamond knife
  • FTIR spectroscopy with mid- and near-IR capability
  • FTIR microscope and ATR
  • Viscotek Complete Tetra Detector Platform and GPCmaxTM front-end chromatography setup
  • Transmission light microscopes with cross polarizers and heating and freezing stage
  • Stereoscope with color ccd camera and image analysis
  • High resolution monochrome digital camera

Thermal, Rheological and Molecular Weight Analysis

  • Simultaneous differential scanning calorimeter and thermal gravimetric analyzer with attached FTIR gas stream analysis
  • Dynamic mechanical analyzer
  • Submersion dynamic mechanical analyzer
  • Differential scanning calorimeter with temperature modulation
  • Dynamic contact angle analyzer
  • Parallel plate rheometer
  • Capillary rheometer
  • Torque rheometer
Wood shavings ready for fiber refinement at WSU CMEC

Sorting, Drying, Blending, and Forming

  • Strand, particle and fiber dryers
  • Mechanical and aerodynamic particle sorters
  • Large-scale ribbon blender with load-scaled receiver tank
  • Drum blender w/ air atomized resin sprayer
  • Adhesive roll coater
  • Electrostatic and mechanical formers
  • Steam tube dryer w/ bag dump station and auger feed system
  • Rotary dryer

Nondestructive Evaluation

  • Ultrasonic pulser-receiver
  • Piezoelectric transducers
  • Transverse vibration E-computer
  • Stress wave timers
  • Ground penetrating radar
  • Infrared thermal imaging system
  • X-ray vertical density profiler

Building Envelope Evaluation

  • Hygrothermal research
  • Natural exposure testing
  • Energy performance assessment

Furnish Generation

  • chipper; hammermill
  • ring, drum and disc flakers
  • dual disc refiner (with steam conditioner)