Structures and Mechanical Testing Laboratory

The fundamental ethos of our laboratory is materials and structures characterisation, with testing from the nano- to macro-scales.

Primarily our facilities are for the School of Engineering, but we do also collaborate with the School of Veterinary Medicine and School of Biosciences and Medicine.

Instrumentation

The facility is built around a suite of universal (screw-driven) and servo-hydraulic test frames, allowing us to undertake quasi-static, dynamic and fatigue experiments.

The nature of the frames is such that we can adapt the frame for a particular experiment allowing us to test a range of specimens in tension, compression, flexure and shear. The biggest frame allows us to test up to 1 MN, but the suite is set up to allow us to move load cells, down to 10 N capacity, into the appropriate frame to give us flexibility over window size.

As well as traditional strain gauges and extensometers, we have a suite of cameras with which to undertake digital image correlation (DIC). We use Correlated Solutions VIC-Snap for acquisition and VIC-3D for analysis.