Development of high-temperature microsample testing

Microsample tensile testing has been established as a means of evaluating the room temperature mechanical properties of specimens with gage sections that are tens to hundreds of microns thick and several hundred microns wide. The desire to characterize the mechanical response of materials at elevated temperatures has motivated the development of high-temperature microsample testing that is reported here. The design of specially insulated grips allows the microsamples to be resistively heated using approximately 2 V DC and currents ranging between 2 to 6 A. An optical pyrometer with nominal spot size of 290 mum and 12 mum diameter type K thermocouples was employed to measure and verify the temperature of the microsamples. The ability of the pyrometer to accurately measure temperature on microsamples of different thicknesses and with slightly different emissivities was established over a temperature range from 400 degreesC to 1100 degreesC. The temperature gradient along the length and thickness of the microsample was measured, and the temperature difference measured in the gage section used for strain measurements was found to be less than 6.5 degreesC. Examples of elevated temperature tensile and creep tests are presented.