The department has extensive laboratory facilities available to it under the College of Engineering's umbrella organization, the Structures & Materials Testing Laboratory. Equipment and technical support are available for elementary and advanced course instruction and independent research. Traditional laboratory work as well as the development of new methods are performed using monolithic and composite materials under static or dynamic loading. The latter may be done by electro-hydraulic, servo-controlled equipment or electrodynamic vibration shakers. New equipment includes computer-controlled and menu-driven test programs.

Our viscoelasticity laboratory is capable of viscoelastic measurements under isothermal conditions, over as much as eleven decades of time and frequency, with no appeal to time-temperature superposition. Experimental studies have been conducted with this viscoelastic instrument on biological materials, biomaterials, high-loss elastomers, cellular solids such as foams, and composites.

The Holography Laboratory contains lasers which emit light at red, yellow, orange, green, and blue wavelengths. Capabilities of this laboratory include holographic interferometry using the static zero order fringe method, the dynamic fringe counting method, and/or the Haidinger fringe method for interpretation; dynamic real time holographic interferometry; production of holographic gratings; and production of white light viewable images.

Major testing machines and available instruments fall into these classifications

Materials and Structures

• Tension/Compression: 20 machines with load capacities ranging from 100 lb. to 1 million lb.
• Torsion: 3 table-top machines (5,000 in.-lb.)

Structures (large)

• Tension/Compression: 6 machines with load capacities ranging from 5,000 lb. to 1 million lb.

Vibrations (small specimens)

• One 10-lb. and one 1,200-lb. shaker
• One laser interferometer vibration pattern imager

Thermoelastic Stress Analysis

• SPATE 9000 infrared stress analyzer

In addition, all traditional strain-gauge and other stress-strain analysis facilities are also available.