Testing talk

November 24, 2009 by David Spenciner

I sat down with Theresa Smith, district sales manager for Instron at the recent North American Spine Society meeting to talk about what trends she sees for the mechanical testing apparatus industry, specific to medical device applications. Instron is a manufacturer of mechanical testing equipment and has a variety of types, from ball screw-driven for plain tensile or compression tests to servohydraulic and electrodynamic for fatigue or fracture toughness tests.

Despite the fact that her office is located just up I-95 from me, it took this conference in San Francisco for us to get our schedules coordinated. We talked about two main areas: The greening of test systems and the increased financial flexibility that Instron offers:

David Spenciner: Theresa, thanks for taking time to talk. What new trends do you see with regard to mechanical testing of medical devices and how is Instron responding?

Theresa Smith: Well, Dave, we see that, especially for large companies, their green initiative pervades all aspects of their business, including capital expenditure and R&D budgets. Three years ago, Instron first offered dynamic testing systems that use electromagnets to drive actuator motion rather than the traditional pressurized oil. More recently, Instron expanded this line to include a larger capacity frame (10 kN) and a tension/torsion frame. There are several important differences between ElectroPuls and the older technology, primarily due to the fact that we are no longer pumping hydraulic oil around. These include a smaller overall footprint, lower facilities preparation costs, less maintenance, quieter operation, decreased electricity usage and relative ease of relocation. A lot of these changes were driven by our support of our customers' green initiatives.

DS: That's a good point. I remember many years ago having a water-cooled pump at our test lab in Cambridge. Before the city made us install a water tank to re-circulate the cooling water, all that water just went down the drain, 24/7 and year after year.

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