Test hall
The 900 square metre test hall has a roof height of 14.5m and is serviced over its entire floor area by two 10 tonne overhead gantry cranes. The east end of the test hall comprises a delivery and specimen preparation area, with two large roller doors for access. The strong floor and walls occupy the central portion of the test hall. Two shake tables and a 500kN fixed load frame are positioned at the west end.
Strong floor and walls
The main feature of the test hall is the strong floor and walls that are used for large-scale tests. The strong floor is 20×10 m wide and the strong wall comprises a 20m long wall on the north side of the floor that extends to 9 m high at one end for 10m and steps down to 5m high for the remaining 10m.
A smaller 9m high and 5m long return wall is configured at the west end of the strong floor to enable bi-directional loading of test specimens. The 9m high strong wall has a design overturning moment and shear capacities of 6600 kNm/m and 945 kN/m of wall length respectively. A basement services the entire strong floor area with access for anchoring specimen to the floor as well as hydraulic and electrical services.
Materials testing laboratory
The 115 square metre materials testing laboratory is a clean temperature controlled laboratory with a range of fixed testing machines. Testing machines include a 1000 kN Avery, 300 kN MTS, 100 kN Instron and 50 kN Instron. These machines are capable of either monotonic or cyclic tests for a range of small scale specimen.
Concrete laboratory
The concrete laboratory consists of a wet mixing and preparation area, a clean testing laboratory, and a curing room totalling 100 metres squared. A 0.1 metre cubed concrete mixer and smaller concrete/grout mixers are used in the wet room with wash out facilities. Cylinder capping and small sample preparation is conducted in the clean room of the laboratory along with two concrete testing machines for cylinders, flexural beams, and masonry prisms.
Key equipment
The Structures Testing laboratory has a variety of high-level equipment for testing purposes. They can be used in a variety of different ways to test various scenarios.
Shake tables
Two shake-tables are located at the west end of the main test hall. The larger table has a plate dimension of 3.6 x 3.6 m. It is driven by a 260 kN actuator with a stroke of ± 200 mm to provide uniaxial seismic excitation. The table is capable of subjecting a 15 tonne payload to a range of dynamic loading including recorded ground motions with peak accelerations up to 1.5g. The smaller 10 kN table has a plate dimension of 1.5 x 1 m and is suitable for scale testing of structural models.
Roaming actuators
The STL is equipped with a number of modern servo controlled hydraulic actuators. These actuators have a range of force and stroke capacities for to suit different types of test. Several of the actuators are capable of conducting tests at dynamic load rates.
| Make | Quantity | Capacity (C/T) (kN) | Total stroke (mm) | Dynamic |
| Shore Western | 1 | 500/300 | 300 | Yes |
| Shore Western | 1 | 330/330 | 300 | Yes |
| Shore Western | 1 | 1048/670 | 760 | No |
| Parker | 1 | 2000/1400 | 600 | No |
| Parker | 2 | 2600/1800 | 900 | No |
| MTS | 1 | 1000/1000 | 300 | Limited |
Fixed loading frames
A steel loading frame with a 500 kN MTS actuator and a separate strong floor is located separately from the main test floor. The setup is capable of conducting a variety of tests, including simply supported beam and floor units, and cyclic loading of structural components.
An A-frame steel loading frame with a 1000 kN MTS actuator is situated on the strong floor and can be reconfigured to suit the specimen size.
Hydraulic system
The STL is equipped with an extensive hydraulic system to power the servo controlled actuators. A hydraulic power unit with a maximum flow of 600 L/min at an operating pressure of 3000 psi is positioned in the basement and feeds a network of fixed hydraulic lines throughout the laboratory.
Data acquisition and sensors
A large number of different sensors are provided to monitor the response of tests and data is feed into an expandable data acquisition system that can handle hundreds of channels at a time and record at high sampling rates for dynamic tests. Typical sensors include load cells, LVDT’s, draw wires, portal gauges, dial gauges, strain gauges, and accelerometers. Advanced non-contact measurement is also available using photogrammetry or digital image correlation techniques.