Portable abrasive test machines

The Ervin Test Machine (ETM) was built and patented back in 1947 by founder John F. Ervin to maintain his own products’ high-quality standard. Nowadays, this machine has become ever since the widely recognized benchmark for comparing abrasive quality through SAE J445 and ISO 11125-9 standards. It is used by many manufacturers of shot in their labs all over the world.

Basic operation involves the propulsion of a sieved and weighed sample of abrasive using a rotating centrifugal wheel to accelerate the particles. The sample is thrown against a hard anvil surface, collected and returned to the wheel, and the process repeated, subjecting the material to repeated impacts. The ETM is emptied, the sample sieved and weighed, and lost material is replenished. This process is repeated until 100% of the original sample has been consumed, and its durability can be calculated.

Being portable, the ETM is used for on-site testing using actual abrasive material from the shot blasting operation as well as checking incoming material for quality.

The machine measures both Durability (abrasive life) and Transmitted Energy (impact energy), which are the two key parameters to value and quality.

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