One of
the most common quality assurance requirements for FRP materials is the
making of witness panels from which coupons are extracted for laboratory
testing per ASTM D3039. Very often, up to four such panels may be required to be produced per day.
Making
such witness panels is an art form…and many installers have dedicated personnel
to make them. The reason is that the tension test results from the panels are
almost always used by the inspectors or engineers-of-record to accept or reject
the FRP material that is being installed in the field. And by the time the
test results come back from the lab, the material corresponding to the tested
coupons has often been hanging on the structure for weeks. If the test results
are unsatisfactory, this material may need to be removed and reinstalled…or
additional layers may have to installed. This is not good news for the
installer.
Also,
most top installers use saturating machines to impregnate or saturate the FRP
in the field. However, witness panels are
often made on table tops, with a sheet of plastic on which mixed resin is
poured and small squares of FRP are saturated with a lot of manual handling. Such a manual process can result in inconsistently prepared witness panels, which can then have a significant impact on the material testing results.
To mitigate such inconsistencies, Külstoff has developed a unique Witness Panel Maker (BA-ATM). This little table top machine takes the art out of
making witness panels. In an operation that closely resembles the saturation of
the FRP fabrics for installation, you can now make witness panels that are
consistently the same, time after time. The time required to make the panels
is substantially reduced and almost anyone on your crew can make these panels.
See for yourself how easy and intuitive it is to make
perfect witness panels with the Külstoff BA-ATM Panel Maker…
Külstoff Witness Panel Maker
With Külstoff's witness Panel Maker make consistent test panels to get coupons that will easily pass the tension test requirements for your project.