Measuring the surface stiffening of metallic materials

This technology has been patented as a technique to study by optical means the formation of nanoparticles in metallic surfaces or alloys. The presence of nanoparticles modifies the vis/NIR spectrum, affecting particular spectral regions. The formation of nanoparticles is particularly important because it is associated to a phase transition of the metal towards a martensitic structure and produces stiffening of the metal. This latter is important for several industrial purposes and could lead to real-time monitoring of metal stiffening process directly in-situ in the production line and to a quality control overcoming the limitations of destructive and random sampling. The use of this technology will lead to the development of tools to measure the surface stiffness, with advantages in terms of ease of use, cost and versatility. The main limitation is the penetration of light inside the material that, for metals, is tipically a few microns. This makes the analysis basically an investigation of surface stiffening.

Staff: Marco Girasole, Giovanni Longo, Simone Dinarelli, Pierfrancesco Moretti