This initiative, financed by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (ANID), through the FONDEQUIP (Fund for Scientific and Technological Equipment) program, will strengthen the development of R&D applied to the study of materials such as polymers, thermoplastics and biomaterials, and the numerical modeling of composite materials, among others.

The university Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO), through the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering and Sciences, made another step towards continuous improvement by adding a scientific equipment that is unique in Chile.

This Equipment is for Dynamic Materials Testing and is part of the FONDEQUIP project no. EQM180111, called “Associative development of new isotropic and anisotropic materials based on broad-spectrum dynamic mechanical conditions”.

The purchase of this equipment was approved and financed by ANID, with an amount of more than 210 million Chilean pesos (ca. 275,500 USD), and will strengthen the development of R&D applied to the study of new materials, such as polymers, thermoplastics and biopolymers. At the same time, it will provide essential information for the numerical modeling of composite materials, among others.

According to Dr. Renato Hunter, the director of the project and Vice-rector for Academic Affairs at UFRO, “the acquisition of this equipment puts the Universidad de La Frontera in a leading position in the development of mechanical material characterization tests. It also puts us in a position of excellence regarding the promotion and strengthening of the development of research and the training of advanced human capital at the universities Universidad de La Frontera, Universidad de Talca, Universidad del Bío-Bío, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, and the Scientific and Technological Bioresource Nucleus (BIOREN-UFRO), by focusing the development of basic and applied R&D on new materials and biomaterials”.

He also explained that this new equipment would give UFRO the opportunity to open new lines of research and to work together with other international universities through the Doctoral Programs of UFRO, and especially through the new Doctoral Program in Engineering, which was developed together with the universities Universidad de Talca and Universidad del Bio Bio, through the Project Engineering 2030.

“This new equipment will allow us to establish a collaborative network with the universities that are part of this initiative, as well as with companies in the industrial sector that require the determination of the mechanical properties of materials through static and dynamic tests at different temperatures”, Dr. Hunter added.

The Composite Materials Laboratory of the Department of Mechanical Engineering is currently working together with a group of companies on a permanent basis. In this context, the acquisition of this new equipment will allow to increase the collaboration with these companies, thanks to the increased testing possibilities that it offers.

Written by: UFRO Communications Office