Structures and Materials Test Facilities

The Structures Test Hall is our high-headroom lab for testing medium to large structural assemblies.

The strong floor and reaction frame systems give great versatility in the types of test that we can carry out, and we have a state of the art Instron actuator system for applying two independent loads under precise computer control.

Equipment

We have a range of Universal Testing Machines. Their use includes strength tests on standard concrete and steel specimens, shear-friction tests on masonry, creep tests on steel at high temperatures, or beam tests.

The lab is equipped with furnaces and ovens for structural testing under heat and fire. We have both electric ovens and a gas radiant panel system, which allow us to carry out bespoke structures in fire testing.

We have modern high speed data acquisition systems, and an inventory of displacement, load, temperature and strain instrumentation. As well as conventional measurement methods we use digital image correlation for displacement measurement, structural health monitoring equipment, and non-destructive testing methods such as ground penetrating radar, acoustic emission and infrared thermography.

The structures lab houses the Silos Gantry, used to test storage silos and to characterise granular flow.

Our particular areas of specialisation include:

Structures in fire and at elevated temperatures
Advanced composites and emerging structural engineering materials
Strengthening and repair of infrastructure
Silos and thin-walled structures
Dynamic effects in structures and materials
Structural health monitoring non-destructive testing
Biomechanical applications of structural engineering

Consultancy Services

We regularly carry out consultancy work upon structural engineering problems, including:

Prototype testing and development before a structure is built
Coupon tests to determine material strength
On-site structural testing and assessment
Computational modelling for design and assessment
Forensic investigation of failures
Design code development
Up to date knowledge on the latest structures research and development
Courses and seminars relating to our areas of expertise

We welcome any opportunity to work with external organisations upon collaborative projects, and the University has a variety of models for collaboration, such as consultancy contracts, knowledge transfer partnerships (KTPs) or sponsored research.