For over 100 years, Atlas Material Testing Solutions has pioneered innovation in the way people can test products for their resistance to environmental influences. Atlas MTS products are designed and manufactured to meet international and industry standard test methods, including ISO, ASTM, DIN, JIS and more. The company's focus includes automotive, paints and coatings, plastics and additives, textiles, pharmaceuticals and consumer products, architecture, aerospace, photovoltaics and packaging materials.
In addition to lightfastness and weatherability instruments, Atlas also manufactures corrosion and flammability testing instruments and provides client education and technical consulting services worldwide.
For most of its history, Atlas Material Testing Technology LLC was privately owned by the Lane family. In 2007, it was acquired by Industrial Growth Partners and in 2010, it became a business unit of AMETEK Measurement, Communications & Testing, a division of AMETEK's Electronic Instruments Group.
Throughout these years, Atlas has been a leading innovator in natural and laboratory lightfastness and weatherability technologies and services, and is committed to continuing its leadership role well into the future.
Atlas Electric Devices Company had its roots in Chicago in the early 1900s as a manufacturer of the Solar-Lite carbon arc lamp used in photographic studios and for illuminating lithographic printing plates. However, by 1910, the electric light bulb had begun to replace carbon arc lamps for studio photography. At the same time, the blockade of Europe, which began in 1914, had choked off the world's supply of German aniline synthetic textile dyes, forcing a return to natural dyes. A major problem with fading in textile color led the Lowell Textile School, a leading institution at the time, to turn to Atlas to see if carbon arc lamps, known to emit ultraviolet light, could be used to test textiles.
In 1915, Atlas introduced the first lightfastness testing device, the Solar Determinator, forever changing the direction of the company. In 1919, the product was renamed and marketed as the Atlas Color Fade-Ometer, improved, and in 1927, the Atlas Weather-Ometer was introduced. In 1932, the Atlas Model X-1-A “Sunshine” Carbon Arc Weather-Ometer was introduced, offering improved spectral matching to sunlight.
The Xenon Era
Similar to Atlas in Chicago, our German ancestors were experts in lighting technology, although not for stage lighting, but for medical applications.
In 1954, Hereaus in Germany introduced the XENOTEST 150, the first xenon arc lamp-based instrument that truly changed the game. Atlas quickly followed suit and acquired XENOTEST GmbH from Hereaus in 1995.
Atlas has made a major technological leap forward by introducing “controlled irradiation” to the Ci series. Today, the Ci series is a powerful leader in weathering instruments, embodied in the latest Ci4400 model.
Weathering testing
In the field of outdoor testing, the South Florida Test Service opened in 1931 and the Desert Sun Exposure Testing (DSET) laboratories began in 1948 outside Phoenix, Arizona. Atlas acquired SFTS in 1934 and DSET in 1994.
DSET invented outdoor accelerated weathering with the creation of the EMMA facility in 1960 and continues to innovate with cutting-edge technology. Atlas has also created a Worldwide Exposure Network with approximately 25 global exposures to facilitate client testing. Atlas operates two commercial artificial weathering testing laboratories, one at the company’s headquarters outside Chicago and one at their European headquarters near Frankfurt, Germany.
Crash simulation and the sun
K.H. Steurnagel Lichtechnik GmbH was founded in 1974 as a manufacturer of special metal halide lighting systems used for solar simulation as well as for high-speed, flicker-free lighting of crash systems. Atlas acquired a 50% stake in the company in 1982 and fully merged the company in early 2000.
