GenTest v3.0 Software for Universal Testing Machines

GenTest v3.0 is NextGen's data acquisition and test control software for universal testing machines. It is built around the test method: the method defines the control steps, the live channels and curves, the calculation rules and the report output, and the operator runs it instead of rebuilding a test each time.

We supply it for QA/QC and laboratory environments where repeatability, traceability and consistent documentation decide whether a result can be defended. Real-time monitoring during the run, built-in calculation of common mechanical properties, flexible unit systems and export-ready reporting all follow from that requirement.

Methods and templates are what hold it together. They keep test execution consistent across operators and shifts, so the laboratory does not depend on anyone remembering the settings a particular specification needs.

If you would like to try it on your NextGen UTM before deciding, our team can arrange it and confirm compatibility with your machine.

Both families in the NextGen range: servo-hydraulic and electromechanical universal testing machines.

A laboratory with different frames across stations or sites therefore keeps one software logic instead of retraining operators for each bench. Methods written for one machine read the same on the next.

That includes frames as different as a 2000 kN Class D and a bench electromechanical machine: the control hardware differs, the workflow does not.

For a company running laboratories on more than one site that is usually the deciding argument. One set of methods, one report format and one training programme cost far less to maintain than a separate arrangement for every bench.

Four core universal testing workflows: tensile, compression, bending and flexure, and shear. These are the tests most routine and standards-based programs run on a UTM, and all four sit in the same method library.

Depending on your configuration and accessories, the library can also include application-specific method groups. The fixtures decide what the frame can physically do, while the software covers control, live curves, calculation and reporting for each test type.

Many laboratories start with tensile testing and add the other tests as fixtures arrive. Because new methods sit in the same library, adding compression or flexure later does not mean learning a different program or retraining operators from scratch.

For the hardware side, our grips and fixtures for NextGen UTMs cover tensile, compression, bending and shear set-ups. Tell us which tests you run and we will confirm the method coverage for the frame you already have.

Each test runs from a saved, defined method instead of settings typed in before every run. The method holds the control steps, the calculations and the report template, so setup parameters, recorded data, calculations and report output all belong to the same test record.

The practical gain is repeatability. Two operators on different shifts running the same method produce comparable results, because the parameters are part of the procedure and not something either of them had to remember.

It also shortens training. A new operator learns to select the correct method and prepare the specimen properly, instead of learning every individual setting that makes up a test.

Over time the method library becomes the laboratory's working list of procedures, with one approved method for each test and specification. When a specification changes, the method is updated once and every later run follows the new version.

From templates. A method can be built from a normal or an expert template, or started from one of the example methods aligned with common standards-based workflows.

Normal templates suit a laboratory running a fixed set of routine tests, while the expert route is for methods that need their own control logic. Either way the method is saved once and reused for every batch instead of being rebuilt.

An example method is usually the quickest way into a new test. It provides the structure of the standard's workflow, for instance a metallic tensile method to ISO 6892-1, and the laboratory sets the parameters its own specification or customer drawing calls for.

Where you already have a written test procedure, send it to us with your order and our team can help translate it into a method during commissioning.

A method is built as a multi-step sequence, Step 1 through Step 4, with configurable control logic and changeover conditions between the steps.

That is how a real test is described: preload at one rate, change to another rate at a defined point, hold, then run to break. The changeover condition is what makes the sequence run the same way every time instead of depending on the operator watching a screen.

Rate changes of exactly this kind are what ISO 6892-1 asks for between the elastic region and the plastic one.

Building the sequence once and saving it means the changeover happens at the same point on every specimen, which is what makes a set of results comparable rather than merely similar.

Stress-strain, displacement-load, load-time and strain-time are the common views, and the run can be monitored in real time.

Watching the curve live is not decoration. An operator who sees the trace flatten early knows the specimen is slipping in the grips and can stop the test before the whole batch is wasted.

On high-force frames such as the Class B that early warning is worth more than the specimen: a grip that lets go at full load is a safety event.

The available views cover the ways different specifications ask for data to be presented, so the curve on screen during the test is the same one that goes into the report afterwards.

Key mechanical results are built in: ultimate tensile strength, yield strength as ReL, ReH or Rp, elongation and modulus of elasticity, when the method is configured for them.

Those are the figures that ASTM E8 and ISO 6892-1 ask a metals laboratory to report, which is why they are part of the method rather than a spreadsheet step afterwards.

Calculating inside the method removes the most common source of error in a test report, which is not the machine but the transcription and the arithmetic that follow it.

Which results appear depends on how the method is configured, so it is worth setting that up once against the standards your laboratory reports to.

N, kN, kgf, lbf and MPa, with formula-based expressions available for method-specific conversions and outputs.

A laboratory reporting in lbf to one customer and in MPa to another does not need two methods for it. The formula layer covers the conversions a particular specification asks for, and the same test can be reported in the units each customer expects from a single record, without anyone recalculating a table by hand.

Unit handling is part of the method. It is set once and applies to every run afterwards, and changing the reporting units does not mean re-entering the test parameters.

That matters most for suppliers working across North American and international markets, where drawings and certificates for the same part are often written in different unit systems.

Standardized reports with tables and graphs, generated from report templates, with export options that fit Word and Excel documentation.

The report is produced from the same record as the test, so the numbers in it were not retyped. That is the part an auditor checks first when a certificate is questioned.

For a tensile certificate the report carries the same properties ASTM E8 expects to see stated.

Export into Word and Excel is what makes the report usable outside the laboratory. It goes into a quality file, a customer submission or a supplier assessment without being rebuilt in another program first.

Yes. Demo mode and simulation files let operators run a method on simulated data without connecting to the testing machine.

That serves two purposes. A new operator can learn the workflow without occupying the frame, and a new or edited method can be validated before it is used on real specimens. Both are cheaper than finding a mistake in a batch of parts.

For a busy laboratory the first purpose is usually the more valuable one, because training otherwise competes with production testing for machine time, and demo mode removes that conflict.

It is also a practical way to show the software to colleagues who will never operate the machine themselves, such as quality managers who sign off the reports. We include it in operator training at installation.

GenTest lets you create users, assign roles and control access to method editing and to test operation separately.

In a QA/QC environment that separation is the point. Operators run approved methods, while changing what a method does is a different permission held by fewer people. If anyone could edit a method, the method would stop being evidence of how a result was produced.

Most laboratories set this up once at commissioning, with a small group able to create and approve methods and everyone else able to run them.

Where your quality system already defines who may change a test procedure, for example under ISO/IEC 17025, the software roles should mirror it instead of creating a second arrangement.

QA and QC departments and laboratories where repeatability, traceability and consistent documentation matter, rather than one-off experiments.

Typical programmes are incoming inspection and batch verification, routine QC across shifts and lots, supplier qualification, material comparisons, and R and D checks on process changes and heat treatment.

In metals work that usually means tensile testing to ASTM E8 with the same method run for years, which is exactly the case method-driven software is built for.

Where a laboratory does a little of everything, the method library keeps each of those programmes separate and repeatable, so an R and D comparison cannot quietly borrow the settings from a routine release test.

It ships with example methods aligned with common standards-based workflows, and the built-in calculations produce the properties those standards report.

The software does not make a machine compliant on its own: the frame still has to be verified to its accuracy class and the specimen prepared correctly. What GenTest removes is the manual arithmetic and the transcription between them.

Our servo-hydraulic frames carry that verification as Class 1 or Class 0.5, and the software records the conditions under which each result was produced.

Where your specification differs from a supplied example, the method is adjusted to match it rather than the other way around.

Every run is kept as one test record that holds the setup parameters, the operator inputs, the recorded data, the calculated results and the report.

That is what turns a number into evidence. When a customer questions a result months later, the method that produced it, the raw curve and the report come from the same record, not from three files matched up by date.

It is also the first thing an auditor looks at: not whether the laboratory has results, but whether it can show how each one was produced and under which procedure. Combined with user permissions, the record shows that an approved method produced the result and not an ad hoc setup.

The software record sits on top of the machine's own traceability. The force readings it stores are only as good as the frame's force calibration, which is typically verified to ISO 7500-1.

GenTest is available for both our servo-hydraulic and electromechanical universal testing machines, so a laboratory keeps the same software logic when different frames are used across stations or sites.

That is what keeps one testing procedure from turning into several that drift apart. Methods follow the same structure on every station, and an operator trained on one bench can work on another without a second training program, which matters when cover is needed at short notice.

Capacity, fixtures and control channels differ from frame to frame, so how methods are moved between stations, and which ones carry over between frame types, is set up with your configuration.

If you are standardizing several laboratories on GenTest, tell us how your stations are arranged and we will help plan how methods are shared and how approved changes are rolled out.

Yes, it is one of the applications the software is built around, together with batch verification.

Incoming inspection is repetitive by nature: the same method, many lots, a decision at the end of each. Method-driven execution and templated reports are aimed exactly at that pattern.

Because the report is generated from the same record as the test, a release decision can be documented as soon as the specimen breaks rather than at the end of the week.

The frame under it is usually one of our universal testing machines sized to the heaviest section that comes through the door, with the method library holding one entry per material grade the plant buys.

Yes. Supplier qualification and material comparisons are among its typical applications, together with R and D comparisons of process changes and heat treatment checks.

A comparison is only as good as the consistency behind it. Running both materials from the same saved method, with the same control steps and calculation rules, means the difference you see is in the material and not in how each batch happened to be tested.

For supplier qualification that consistency is the whole argument. Results stay attached to the method that produced them, so a comparison can be shared with a supplier together with the conditions it was tested under.

When a comparison feeds a purchasing or process decision, the people signing it off can see from the reports that both materials were tested under the same procedure, which is usually the first question they ask.

Metal testing programmes in aerospace, automotive, construction and manufacturing.

What they share is the need to prove a material rather than to explore it: a batch either meets the specification or it does not, and the paperwork has to stand up to a customer audit.

Those laboratories usually run our universal testing machines as well, which is why we offer the software across both frame families rather than tying it to one.

If you work to an industry scheme with its own documentation requirements, tell us and we will confirm what the reporting side covers before you commit to a configuration.

Ask us. The team can confirm compatibility with the machine you already own, advise on installation and answer licensing questions.

If you would like to try the software on your NextGen frame, or need technical support for a copy you already run, contact us and we will come back with clear next steps.

For pricing on a new installation, an online quotation request reaches the same team. Tell us the machine model, the tests you run and the standards you report to, and the answer will cover compatibility as well as cost.

Where the software is going onto a frame that is already in service, we will confirm what the installation involves before anything is scheduled.