Facilities
The following experimental research facilities are available:
Structures and Fire Testing
The University of Manchester's Merchant Structural Engineering Laboratories have been providing a large-scale testing facility for over 40 years, meeting the diverse needs of university students and researchers whilst at the same time serving industry. The laboratories are named in memory of UMIST's Wilfred Merchant, whose contribution to the understanding of the stability of steel structures can be paralleled to Manchester's Michael Horne's achievements in the development of plastic design methods.
Housed in the Pariser Building on the university's North Campus, the laboratories offer large 'strong floors' with closely spaced 250kN anchor points, served by 5 tonne overhead cranes and by a hydraulic ring main from which several static and dynamic testing rigs can be run simultaneously. The testing machines available provide a tensile fatigue capacity up to 500kN with static bending up to 2500kN and compression to 3000kN. The versatility of the facilities lies in its scope for purpose-built test equipment, particularly for research and development work at large-scale, from nineteenth century cast iron railway bridges, to twentieth century North Sea oil rigs, to twenty-first century long span composite steel floors.
Development and testing of a new composite floor slab in the Heavy Structures Laboratory
The University also has 3 furnaces, housed in the Simon Building on the south side of the campus. The furnaces comprise a small furnace, (1.5m x 1.5m x1.5m internal space), a medium furnace (3m x 1.5m x1.5m internal space) and a large furnace (3.5m x 3.5m x2.0m internal space). All furnaces can follow a programmed time-temperature response, including the standard fire curve, and can be controlled by either the bead or plate thermocouple. The small furnace is typically used for indicative tests with the medium and large furnace used for loaded members. The furnaces have been used for research and development work on structural elements, passive fire protection materials and wall panels.
Indicative fire test on intumescent coatings using the universities furnaces.
Impact and Explosive Testing
Impact and Explosion facilities:
- Drop Hammers: wide range up to 16kJ, 10m/s;
- Horizontal launcher and standard CAI tests;
- ESH servo-hydraulic high spend loading machine: speed up to 10m/s;
- Gas Gun (a wide range of velocities and projectile sizes): 100kJ, 10-500m/s;
- Two Stage Gas Gun: 1000-1500m/s;
- Instrumentations: Hopkinson bars for high strain rate materials characterisation; high speed photography; transient recorders; load, strain and displacement transducers.
- Containment vessel: 1.5 meter diameter for up to 1kg equivalent TNT explosive;
- Collaborations with other institutes for accessing explosion vessels, high speed rotating facilities, large calibre guns, etc;