West Campus Structural Testing Laboratory
The West Campus Structural Testing Laboratory, which opened in 2014, is designed to accommodate testing of full-scale systems and components. The laboratory has 10,000 ft2 of open laboratory area with a clear height of 43 ft. The strong floor has anchor points spaced 3 ft on center that support loads of up to 100,000 pounds at each anchor location. An L-shaped reaction wall is located at one end of the reaction floor. Each face of the wall has a 36 ft long by 40 ft tall reaction area with anchor points spaced 3 ft on center. The wall allows the application of loads of up to 880,000 pounds anywhere on its surface in one or two directions simultaneously. The laboratory is equipped with two 20-ton cranes that can be operated independently or jointly. It has an MTS Silentflo hydraulic power unit with a rated flow capacity of 180 gpm and an MTS Flex-Text 60 control system capable of controlling up to eight channels operating jointly or separately through up to 6 different test stations.
Testing equipment is shared between the laboratories and with Marshal G. Lutz Fracture and Fatigue Laboratory. This shared equipment includes two 55,000-pound, one 110,000-pound, two 220,000-pound, and one 330,000-pound MTS hydraulic actuators. The actuators, which have stroke lengths of between 10 and 40 inches, are equipped with single or dual servovalves with rated flow capacities of up to 90 gpm. A Power-Team hydraulic loading system is also available that includes rams with several different load ratings, including four 100-ton dual acting rams. For data acquisition, the laboratories share multiple National Instruments data acquisition systems that can be configured to be used independently or jointly and a non-contact infrared based data acquisition system for recording deformations of both small and large-scale specimens.
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For more information, please contact any of the following professors:
- Dr. Caroline Bennett at 785-864-3235 or crb@ku.edu
- Dr. William Collins at 785-864-0672 or william.collins@ku.edu
- Dr. David Darwin at 785-864-3827 or daved@ku.edu
- Dr. Andres Lepage at 785-864-6848 or alepage@ku.edu
- Dr. Remy Lequesne at 785-864-6849 or rlequesne@ku.edu
- Dr. Jian Li at 785-864-6850 or jianli@ku.edu
- Dr. Matt O'Reilly at 785-864-9017 or oreilly3@ku.edu
- Dr. Elaina Sutley at 785-864-2345 or enjsutley@ku.edu
