Facilities

THE STEEL STRUCTURES LABORATORY “EUGEN CHESARU”

This laboratory is part of the Department of Steel Structures, Management and Engineering Graphics within the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest. Here the experimental activity is mainly carried out by the members of the Steel Structures Team but also by other members of the department, of the Faculty of Civil Engineering or of the university.
The building has steel structure, and it is also very good teaching aid for the steel structures courses. It has an span of 18 meters and four 6-meter bays, which allows carrying out test at full scale.
The main types of experimental testing that can be performed in this laboratory are:
• bending moment tests on structural elements with span up to 27 m, loaded with forces of maximum 1000kN located at distances of 1.5m among them;
• compression tests on structural members up to 5m long, loaded with forces up to 1500kN;
• tension, compression or bending moment tests on specimens or elements up to 1m long, statically loaded with forces up to 3000kN.
The main testing devices of the laboratory are:
• bending test stand, with columns and beams, with 80 anchor points with a capacity of 1000kN each; one can test elements up to 27m long, 3m wide and 5m high;
• compression test stand, for elements up to 5m long, loaded with forces up to 1500kN (figure 1);

FIGURE 1

• electro-hydraulic press type ZD 300, for elements up to 1m long, loaded in tension, compression or bending with forces up to 3000kN; it allows tests on plate specimens up to 40mm thick, round steel bars with a maximum diameter of 42mm, as well as on welded or bolted joints (figures 2 and 3);

FIGURE 2
FIGURE 3

• electric overhead crane with a capacity of 50KN (figure 4);

FIGURE 4

• electro-hydraulic system with pulsating cylinders for up to 8 static or dynamic forces of max. 1000kN each;
• universal WDW-600 tension and compression testing machine;
• toughness testing (Charpy impact test);
• devices and machines for welding and mechanical processing (2 electric converters for welding, 1 oxyacetylene cutting and welding device, 1 universal milling machine, 1 planer, 2 fixed drilling machines, 2 polishing machines, 1 electric saw, etc.);
• Vickers and Rockwell hardness measuring devices
• digital device for thickness measurement, model 26-MG – measuring thicknesses 0.5-500mm
• digital device for thickness measurement, model G2 -DL – measuring thicknesses 0.5-635mm
• ultrasonic flaw detector
More information about this lab can be found here.