In addition to its clean rooms and thermal vacuum facilities described above, it has a number of specialist facilities associated with the manufacture, assembly and test of space mechanisms and bearings.
Coating Facility
ESR has coating facilities for the production of space qualified PVD (physical vapour deposition) solid lubricant coatings, mainly lead and MoS2, with capability for other coatings such as silver.
Friction and wear research facilities
ESR has:
- Precision inspection and measurement facilities within the cleanroom include digital microscopy, CMM and other metrology, and an instrumented pre-loading press;
- Comprehensive metallurgical inspection and test facilities for forensic inspection and materials characterisation including fatigue, hardness, tensile testing and profilometry;
- X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) for the measurement of thin film thickness.
Specialist Tribometers
ESR has Specialist tribometers for the measurement of fundamental friction and wear properties in a representative environment.
Scanning Electron Microscopy and Electron Dispersion Spectroscopy
ESR has SEM capabilities and EDS capabilities for chemical characterisation.
