Facilities

The KU Structures Group has some of the best facilities in the country to simulate different type of loads and to perform structural testing. The School of Engineering at the University of Kansas has three structural testing laboratories with specialized equipment that allow for testing of components, subassemblies, reduced-scale structures, and full-scale structures. 

West Campus High Bay Laboratory

The West Campus High Bay Laboratory is a brand new facility which began operations in the fall of 2014. This facility is designed for testing of full-scale systems and components and has 6,800 ft2 of open laboratory area with a clear height of 45 ft.

The west-campus high-bay facility has two 44-kip traveling cranes to facilitate fabrication and transportation of specimens within the test bay. Loads up to 100 kips can be applied by servo-hydraulic actuators and hydraulic jack systems to anchor points spaced 3 ft on-center over a 50 ft x 136 ft area. An L-shaped reaction wall is located at one of the edges of the reaction floor.  The reaction area of each wall surface has a length of 36 ft and a height of 40 ft, with anchor points spaced 3 ft on-center. Cyclic and dynamic testing of full-scale structural components or reduced-scaled models can be performed using an arrangement of servo-hydraulic actuators, including two 55-kip, one 110-kip, two 220-kip MTS, and one 330-kip actuator equipped with single or dual servovalves with rated flow capacities of up to 40 gpm. The West Campus High-Bay laboratory has an MTS Silentflo hydraulic power unit with a rated flow of 180 gpm to provide hydraulic oil to the actuators. An MTS Flex-Text 60 control system is available for cyclic and dynamic testing of full-scale structural components within the test bay, and is capable of controlling up to eight channels operating jointly or separately through up to six different test stations. Multiple National Instruments data acquisition systems can be configured to be used independently or jointly to monitor and record load, strain, and displacement in tests of different scales.

Figure A2. Uniaxial Shake Table (a) and SC6000 Desktop Control System (b) (Shore Western Manufacturing)

As shown in Figure A2, a 40 inch x 40 inch uniaxial shaking table with a payload of 1 tonne is currently being installed in the High-Bay Laboratory. The table can produce various types of uniaxial motions, including sinusoidal, random, and earthquake motions, up to 2g maximum acceleration. The shake table is configured with a high-performance, integrated digital control and data acquisition system, SC6000 Desktop Control System. 

The laboratory has a wide variety of sensors, including wireless sensors, wired accelerometers, displacement transducers and force transducers, etc. The National Instruments data acquisition system (NI CompactDAQ) consists of 20 accelerometer and 8 strain measurement channels, and 4 analog output channels.

The Structural Testing Laboratory

The Structural Testing Laboratory has a testing bay with 4,000 ft2 of open laboratory area with a clear height of 30 ft. A 44-kip traveling crane is available for fabrication and transportation of specimens within the test bay. Loads up to 100 kips can be applied by servo-hydraulic actuators and hydraulic jack systems at each tie-down location, which are spaced 3 ft on-center over a 50 ft x 80 ft area.  Cyclic and dynamic testing of full-scale structural components or reduced-scaled models can be performed using an arrangement of MTS servo-hydraulic actuators, including two 55-kip, one 110-kip, two 220-kip, and one 330-kip actuator equipped with single or dual servovalves with rated flow capacities of up to 40 gpm. The structural testing laboratory has three MTS hydraulic power units with rated flows of 90 gpm, 30 gpm, and 20 gpm to provide hydraulic oil to the actuators. A Flex-Text II CTC control system capable of managing up to four actuators is available for cyclic and dynamic testing of full-scale structural components within the test bay. The structural testing laboratory has three hydraulic testing machines with digital control systems. The testing machines have monotonic loading capacities of 600 kips, 120 kips, and 60 kips. 

Multi-Dimensional Fatigue and Fracture Facility (MDF3)

The MDF3 Laboratory is housed in the new Measurements, Materials and Sustainable Environment Center (M2SEC) at the University of Kansas. It includes 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 attached to tie-down locations on multiple planes. The tie-downs are evenly spaced 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 3 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 MDF3 Laboratory also has two servo-hydraulic test frames with capacities up to 110 kips.  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 performing small component and material testing.