Fracture and Fatigue Laboratory

The Marshal G. Lutz Fracture and Fatigue Laboratory is housed in the new Measurements, Materials and Sustainable Environment Center (M2SEC) Room G548. It has static and servo-hydraulic test equipment.  A structural testing room for component and reduced-scale model testing has 360 ft2 of reaction floor space with orthogonal reaction walls on two sides of the test floor and a reaction ceiling with a clear height of 12 ft. Loads up to 100 kips can be applied using jack systems and servo-hydraulic actuators to tie-down locations on multiple planes. The tie-downs are evenly spaced at 2 ft. on center throughout the floor, walls and ceiling of the testing room.

Cyclic and dynamic testing of full-scale structural components or reduced-scaled models can be performed using an arrangement of servo hydraulic actuators and hydraulic rams. Actuators are controlled with an MTS Flextest 40 controller capable of controlling up to 4 actuators separately or in tandem. Servo hydraulic actuators are powered using an MTS Silentflo hydraulic power unit with a rated flow of 120 gpm.  The Marshal G. Lutz Fracture and Fatigue Laboratory has two servo-hydraulic test frames with capacities up to 110 kips. A 35-kip and a 110-kip closed loop servo-hydraulic universal testing systems (MTS and Instron) are housed in a 200 ft2 area dedicated to small component and material testing.