Supply, Delivery and Commissioning of Lapping and Polishing Equipment

Description

The Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC) Materials Team requires to purchase lapping and polishing equipment for use on-site at the AFRC. The lapping process will be used to prepare large metallic samples for optical microscopy. AFRC is looking to appoint a supplier to provide a suitable piece of equipment for grinding and polishing very large metallic samples, so that they can be etched, then inspected using optical microscopy. Lot 1: The Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC) Materials Team requires to purchase lapping and polishing equipment for use on-site at the AFRC. The lapping process will be used to prepare large metallic samples for optical microscopy. AFRC is looking to appoint a supplier to provide a suitable piece of equipment for grinding and polishing very large metallic samples, so that they can be etched, then inspected using optical microscopy. These large metallic samples will be produced more and more frequently through testing on the AFRC's Future Forge platform. An important part of the value of this platform is the ability to inspect the effect of different forging process on the microstructure on metallic alloys. To inspect the microstructures, samples must be ground and polished, so this capability is an essential compliment to the Future Forge. It is not possible to grind and polish the very large samples produced by future forge using the existing standard metallographic preparation equipment at the AFRC.. Economic operators may be excluded from this competition if they are in any of the situations referred to in regulation 8 and 9 of the Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2016.