production route of manufacturing and testing specimens from a oil pump stator

Stator of Adjustable Oil Pump: Testing Local Material Properties

Oil pump stators had been produced by injection molding of long fiber reinforced polymer (LFRP). And our customer wanted to get insight into the local material properties inside the stators. So we took specimens from this component and tested them.

drawing of specimen locations in an oil pump housing

We decided to use bend testing for this job. Accordingly, we developed a custom bend test specimen. Then we used CNC milling to prepare 25 bend specimens per part. Most notably we tracked the location and orientation of each specimen in the component.

production route of creating and testing specimens from oil pump housing

Then we developed a custom bend test setup. We performed bend tests with an accurate measurement of force and displacement. For displacement measurement we used a video extensometer. This way we could directly measure the distance between specimen and support. Then we verified the results using finite element analysis.

local material properties in an oil pump housing made of injection molded long fiber reinforced polymer

Thus we could evaluate the local material properties in the oil pump stator. We reported bend strength and bend modulus as well as their statistical behavior. For further evaluation and finite element analysis by the customer, we provided the time dependent test data. All data is uniform and fit further computer-aided usage.