Under this project, the materials science and engineering strength of materials laboratory will be automated. A bench-top Instron Model 1011, 1000 pound load capacity will be added to the laboratory to supplement an existing 20,000 pound load capacity machine. The new instrument is equipped with an IEEE 488 bus that will be interfaced with a Macintosh Plus computer equipped with a National Instruments interface board and labVIEW software. The students will be able to learn real time control and computer data acquisition and analysis. The experiments planned include the testing of both metals and polymers. In addition, the data acquisition system will be used to measure the electrical properties of materials, including semiconductors.
