Independent testing laboratories

Third-party laboratories running to standard for many customers at once. The constraint is repeatability across operators and across months, not the best result a good operator can achieve on a good day.

What this work prepares

Whatever arrives

A commercial laboratory does not choose its materials. The practical answer is a small number of documented routes that cover most of what comes through the door, plus a way of deciding quickly which one a new sample belongs to.

Work bound by a written standard

Inclusion rating, grain size, nodularity, case depth, coating thickness. In each the standard constrains the preparation, because the measurement is only valid on a surface prepared to it.

Work that has to be defensible

Under accreditation the method is auditable. A consumable changed without the method being re-validated is a finding, which is why a like-for-like replacement matters more here than a cheaper alternative.

Sources

• What each material class needs, and the figures behind it: the linked preparation guide, which cites the manufacturer document and page for every figure it prints.
• What P2 supplies and does not: Independent sourcing.
• The description of this sector’s metallographic work is general engineering knowledge and is P2’s own; it is not a manufacturer statement and it makes no claim about any particular customer.

Preparing carbon and low-alloy steels for metallography — the manufacturer’s published preparation route for the material this sector works with most, with the document and page behind every figure in it.

Holding a part number from another manufacturer? Send it and we will match it.