Test for determining toughness, or the tendency of a material to resist breaking on being subjected to sudden shock. It involves notching a bar on the test specimen, clamping one end (in a cantilever beam configuration) and striking the other end so it breaks off.

Theoretical stress that causes fracture in tensile test if material exhibits no plastic deformation.

In materials that exhibit a yield point, the Yield Point Elongation (YPE) is the difference between the elongation of the specimen at the start and at the finish of discontinuous yielding (the area in which an increase in strain occurs without an increase in stress).

Stress imposed on a part in service.

When you start the software, it detects any frame that is connected to the computer. If no frame is connected, the software runs in “standalone” mode. This lets you do everything except run tests on specimens.

An enclosure used to reduce the hazard from specimen debris during an impact test.

The process and objective evidence used to determine if the unit under test fulfills specified requirements. For example, ASTM and ISO standards define processes to be used for verification. If the measurement/calculation made using these defined processes, with a defined level of accuracy, is within the specified limits, the device is verified as [..]

Instron name for the feature that lets you create more channels for your testing system. It requires additional hardware to let you connect extra transducers to these channels. [Previously known as Multichannel in custom versions of Merlin software].

Virtual measurements provide data about the specimen that is calculated from a mathematical expression using data from one or more physical measurements. For example, stress is derived from load divided by the specimen cross-sectional area, average strain is derived by dividing the sum of two strain measurements.

Property of a material which is viscous but which also exhibits certain elastic properties such as the ability to store energy of deformation, and in which the application of a stress gives rise to a strain (or vice versa) that approaches its equilibrium value over a significant time interval. Viscoelastic materials can’t be accurately described us [..]