Skip to content
Keighley Laboratories Ltd
About us
Keighley Laboratories delivers metallurgical testing for today’s demanding industries including aerospace, defence and energy.
Customers rely on us to deliver technical excellence - providing reliable data and insight into chemical analysis, corrosion, mechanical, non-destructive, commercial and aerospace weld testing, salt spray testing, reverse engineering and consultancy services.
With extensive facilities, industry accredited processes and a team of skilled metallurgists, chemists and engineers, we deliver on precision, quality and trust.
Products & services
Heat Treated Aluminium
Heat Treatment of aluminium products can be problematic, services that we offer in support of this: Cladding Diffusion within Aluminium alloys that are clad in pure aluminium needs to be tightly controlled in order to excessive diffusion of the cladding material into the base metal. Using our metallographic techniques, we are able to assess against national, international and prime specifications ensuring that your furnace controls meet relevant requirements. Incipient Fusion/melting- occurs in precipitation-hardenable aluminium alloys which are typically heat treated in order to further enhance their properties, however, over heating during the heat treatment process can lead to incipient melting, where certain areas with a higher alloy content area such as a grain boundary can melt before the rest of the material resulting in degredation of the mechanical and corrosion properties. Once occurred, the process is irreversible, resulting in scrapping of the material Eutectic Melting – The solution heat treatment temperature of some aluminium alloys and the eutectic/incipient melting temperature can be very close to each other. Too low a temperature will not fully solutionise the material, whilst too high a temperature can result in eutectic melting the material. Because of the very narrow temperature band, a small error in furnace calibration or control can result in overheating and therefore incipient/eutectic melting of the material. High Temperature Oxidation - sometimes referred to as hydrogen blisters occur due to the reaction of water vapour with the surface of the aluminium and can occur during the solution heat treatment process in a furnace that has a relatively high moisture content. The reaction may lead to blisters below the surface of the material, affecting the appearance of the product. In general terms, the higher-strength alloys are far more susceptible that lower-strength alloys, with alclad alloys being practically immune to HTO blister formation.
Salt Spray Testing
All of our Salt Spray and Cabinet Based Corrosion Testing can be tailored to customers’ specific needs, with a wide range of services offered and typical exposure times ranging from 16 hours to over 5000 hours. Tests include Neutral Salt Spray, Acetic Acid Accelerated Salt Spray and Copper Acetic Acid Accelerated Salt Spray – typical specifications - AST B117, ISO 9227, ASTM B368. We also offer Fog/Dry Cyclic Salt Spray Tests and Humidity Testing.
Metallographic Examination
Metallographical examination allows for determination of certain characteristics of the material. These include the quality of the material, material cleanliness, plating thickness, the response to heat treatment and heat treatment processes (case depth analysis – visual and hardness, through hardening checks, nitride layer thickness, tufftride evaluation, etc. ), grain size and structure. Examination also allows analysis of casting integrity, alpha case, alloy depletion, deleterious phase check, volume fraction, percentage cavitation, structural evaluation, weld quality and coating/plating thickness measurements.
Chemical Analysis
Providing chemical analysis, corrosion testing (including intercrystalline/intergranular and pitting corrosion ASTM G28, ASTM G48 etc.) and alloy verification of metal and their alloys – both ferrous and non-ferrous. Processes allow for independent material overchecks by elemental analysis, identifying specifications for use in reverse engineering, failure analysis, R & D, material verification, galvanising bath overchecks etc. UKAS 17025 and Nadcap MTL.
Thread Rolling Verification
Visual and dimensional checks alone can not fully verify the quality of rolled threads. Our metallurgical checks will verify the material integrity in the treaded areas, identifying undesirable defects such as laps, seams, crest craters and uneven thread profiles and ensuring good material flow has been achieved.
Weld Testing
Keighley Laboratories offers a comprehensive and independent weld testing and inspection service including: Welding procedure and approval certification, Welder qualification test and coding, welder performance qualification, onsite welding invigilation, responsible welding coordinators available for customer support. Our weld testing service covers most commercial and aerospace specifications. We are approved or accepted by significant companies including Airbus, Safran, CAA, BAe (civil and military), Bombardier, Westland Helicopters/ Leonardo etc.
Non Destructive Testing
This includes: Liquid Penetrant Testing, Ultrasonic Flaw Detection, Radiography, Relative Magnetic Permeability, Ferrite Determination, Electrical Conductivity Measurement and Coating thickness checks.
Mechanical Testing
Tests include: Tensile and Compression Load Testing, Impact Testing (Charpy and Izod), Hardness Testing (Rockwell, Vickers and Brinell) and Fatigue Testing. Test Pieces machined in accordance with national and international specifications in own own machine shop. Quality control ensures components will survive and perform in intended applications, or as a requirement to a material specification. Tensile/Load testing can be carried out on full size components from small products to bridge retaining bolts. Analysis can be used to determine if the material matches a required specification or as a tool to verify incoming material. UKAS 17025 and Nadcap MTL.
News
NATIONAL APPRENTICESHIP WEEK – A KEIGHLEY LABORATORIES SUCCESS STORY
Over the years, we’ve worked closely with Keighley College and taken part in Bradford Manufacturing Weeks, offering apprenticeship opportunities within our company.
KEIGHLEY LABS SHORTLISTED FOR KEIGHLEY & AIREDALE BUSINESS AWARDS IN THE MANUFACTURING/ENGINEERING CATEGORY
This is the first time Keighley Labs has entered these awards, making the recognition of being shortlisted even more exciting.