Facilities

West Virginia University

    WVU is a Land Grant University with approximately 30,000 students. The Constructed Facility Center is a research, development and implementation entity located in the College of Engineering and Mineral Resources. Founded in 1988 through partial support from NSF, the WVU-CFC has become a leader in composite research and applications. WVU-CFC is unique for its ability to convert existing technology from a wide variety of sources to technologies having an immediate impact on the Nation's constructed facilities. The mission of WVU-CFC is to foster and conduct R&D vital to advancing new materials and new nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques and to promote and implement advanced FRP composites for civil and military infrastructure applications (http://www.cemr.wvu.edu/cfc/).
    WVU-CFC's ability to adapt rapidly to changing research needs, allows them to study emerging technologies and adapt these technologies to create new products such as fiber composite materials, diagnostic tools, design procedures, or new structural components. A second distinguishing feature is their close-working relationship with the owners of our Nation's constructed facilities. Much of their work is conducted in cooperation with chemical, manufacturing and construction industry, highway agencies and other government agencies. Through joint projects and continuing education, the WVU-CFC is in frequent contact with practicing engineers. WVU-CFC researchers have authored over 500 journal and peer-reviewed conference publications in the last 10 years. Of these, many involved research that required close collaboration with industry. Funding for these studies has come from a variety of sources, including USDOT-FHWA and FRA, USDOE, USDA, USDOD-ONR, WVDOT-DOH, WVDA, industrial sources and the NSF Civil and Mechanical Systems and Educational Divisions.
    WVU-CFC has the following material processing, composite fabrication and testing equipment at its discretion: 1) Battenfeld Injection Molding Machine BA 1000 CDC/315; 2) Plastech RTM Machine Megaject Sprint; 3) PHI Compression Molding Machines; 4) High Temperature (~400F) Resin Infusion; 5) Brabender Twin Screw Extruder D6/2 with Pellelizer; 6) Rheometric Scientific DMTA; 7) Dynisco Melt Flow Indexer LMI D4002; 8) Instron Testing Machines Model 1011 and Model 8501 with Thermal Chambers; 9) Satec BLI Izod Impact Testing Machine; 10) Instron Shore's Hardness Tester; 11) Rheometric Mechanical Spectrometer -RMS800; 12) TA Instruments DSC 910; 13) TA TGA; 14) Guided Heat Flow Meter ANTER Unitherm model 2022 thermal conductivity testing system and Netzsch Dilatometer CTE testing system; 15) Various strain data collection devices including data acquisition system; 16) wide range of fatigue testing equipment; 17) Micromaster Microscope; 18) Hitachi SEM S-4700; 19) Panalytical X-ray Diffractometer; 20) Varian NMR Spectrometer. XRD and TEM at NETL - US DOE (Morgantown, WV) and Medical Center -WVU are also available to CFC researchers.
    WVU-CFC has three large, high bay testing laboratories with heavy duty cranes, loading dock, and storage space, where structural members, such as columns and beams, can be tested. Some of the available structural testing equipment includes two advanced laser systems for 2-D deflection measurement under dynamic and wind loads, a column- buckling machine up to 110 kips capacity, a combined torsion, bending and shear frame for samples up to 10 ft in length, several other frames and actuators from 100 kips up to 300 kips, three MTS servo-hydraulic fatigue testing systems, and one programmable Thermotron environmental chamber 8x12x8 ft with mechanical loading access.
    WVU-CFC, through grants and contracts, receives on average $1 to $1.5 million a year in research funding through a multi-disciplinary team of faculty, academic professionals and staff from the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), Chemical Engineering (ChE), Industrial and Management Systems Engineering (IMSE), Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) and Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (LCSEE). A list of key personnel at WVU-CFC is included in the Supplemental Documents.

North Carolina State University

    The Constructed Facilities Laboratory (CFL) is a sophisticated structure with specially designed reaction floors and walls to support three-dimensional loading. It houses facilities devoted to the development and testing of innovations to improve the public and private constructed infrastructure such as highways, bridges, industrial plants, buildings, and residences. Improved infrastructure is critical for sustaining economic development and for protecting the public from natural hazards like hurricanes and earthquakes. At the CFL, innovations in construction materials, construction techniques, and analysis and design methods can be developed and tested with prototypes and hands-on experiments as well as computer simulations. This integrated research laboratory includes several components including a large structural systems laboratory which is supported by fabrication and machining facilities, electronics and instrumentation facilities and computer facilities for simulation and data analysis.
    The Large Structural Systems Laboratory, has 4,500 square feet of reaction floor space and is supported by a fabrication and machine shop. The laboratory allows CFL researchers to develop and evaluate a broad range of conventional and advanced composite materials such as fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites, conventional and high-strength concrete; high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete, steel, wood, and masonry as well as large-scale structural systems exposed to static, fatigue, and seismic types of loading. The laboratory is served by two 20-ton overhead cranes. It is fitted with hydraulic pressure lines connected to a 100-gallon/minute capacity hydraulic pump, compressed air lines, outlets to a computer network for data collection, and appropriate electrical service.
    The reaction floor is a 13-foot-thick cellular box, which is about 120 feet long by 40 feet wide. It is complemented by one fixed and one modular 25-foot-high reaction wall. This configuration allows testing of large structural systems under one or two directional horizontal loading. State-of-the-art apparatuses for testing high-strength materials and large-scale structural systems are also available, including: 1) Four reconfigurable test frames with up to 2000-kip force capacity and up to a 20-foot vertical clearance; 2) One column-testing frame with a 400-kip force capacity and 25-foot vertical clearance; 3) A closed-loop computer-controlled testing system with a series of two 22-, 55-, 110-, 220- and 440-kip actuators capable of applying both static and dynamic loading, with displacement ranges up to 40 inches for the 440-kip actuators; 4) A 2000-kip Baldwin-MTS closed-loop compression machine with "high temperature/high pressure" capability; 5) A 220-kip MTS closed-loop universal testing machine; and 6) A 20-kip Sintech-MTS computer-controlled materials testing machine.
The fabrication and machining facilities are adjacent to the Large Structural Systems Laboratory and are fully equipped with milling, lathe and welding facilities.  The Electronics and Instrumentation Shop has a variety of instrumentation for testing materials and large-scale systems. The laboratory also houses four high-speed data acquisition systems to record necessary test data.
    The Engineering Research Services Division provides additional campus support to the CFL, including a precision machine shop, an electronic shop, and an analytical instrumentation facility. The department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering also has additional laboratories for educational and research activity, including structural mechanics, structural behavior measurements, non-destructive testing, construction automation and robotics, asphalt materials and pavements, construction systems, hydraulic engineering and environmental engineering.
    Computing facilities that can be accessed from the CFL include state-of-the-art workstations that form part of the EOS distributed systems within the College of Engineering. EOS uses technology developed for project Athena at MIT, which provides a robust, centrally managed system of commercial and academic engineering software tools. These include analysis and simulation software (ANSYS, SIMAN, SLAM), CAD systems (AUTOCAD, CADkey, CADRAIII), mathematical software (MATLAB, MAPLE, SAS), as well as numerous word processors, graphic packages and compilers. A list of key personnel at NCSU is included in the Supplemental Documents. 

University of Miami

    The University of Miami is a private institution of Florida, with a student population of approximately 15,500. This center node is headquartered at the University of Miami's Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering.  The University of Miami, College of Engineering, Structures and Materials Laboratory (SML) is an integrated educational, research and testing service facility, dedicated to conduct applied and fundamental research through testing and analysis of construction materials and structural systems. The SML operates as a testing facility has met the requirements of the International Accreditation Service (IAS) AC89 "Accreditation Criteria for Testing Laboratories;" and has demonstrated compliance with ANSI/ISO/IEC Standard 17025:2005 "General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories." The SML is equipped with a variety of test frames and actuators for structural and material testing under static, dynamic and sustained loads.  Extensive data acquisition capabilities are provided for both laboratory and field testing, in combination with a large inventory of measurement sensors.   

    Additionally, a 3,000 sq. ft. rapid prototyping facility is equipped to handle the most complex prototyping tasks. It includes two CNC machine capable of 5-axis milling and turning, an Alaris30U rapid prototyping machine capable of prototyping mechanisms, modern sheet metal and wood working equipment and a complete welding department. This facility can provide support for the fabrication of custom equipment, test specimens and set-ups as needed.

Nanjing Tech University

    The Nanjing Tech- Advanced Engineering Composites Research Center is accommodated in three (3) dedicated buildings including one 3 story office building and two research buildings (Figure 9) and operates well equipped Composite Structures Laboratory and Modern Timber Structures Laboratory, in addition to the Jiangsu Province Key Lab of Civil Engineering and Disaster Mitigation.
    Nanjing Tech-AECRC has the following material processing, composite fabrication, and testing equipment at its discretion: 1) VARTM machine; 2) Spraying equipment; 3) Pultrusion machine; 4) Winding equipment; 5) Electronic universal testing machine; 6) 300T MTS fatigue test setup; 7) Salt spray corrosion test device; 8) UV-resistant climate testing machine; 9) Computing workstations equipped with a number of outstanding analysis software, such as ABAQUS, ANSYS / DYNA, SAP2000, MIDAS, and so on; 10) TA Rheometer; 11) NETZSCH Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) 200F3; 12) NETZSCH Thermogravimetric Analyzer (TGA); 13) Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC); 14) Fluorescence Spectrophotometer; 15) Thermo- Nicolet Nexus 6700 FTIR-Raman Spectrometer; 16) Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM); 17) Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM); 18) Scanning Electron Microscope; 19) X-ray diffraction (XRD); 20) Twin screw extruder; 21) Drum mixer; 22) Vertical burning tester for foam, and 23) many others.

University of Texas at Arlington

    The Structural Research Laboratory (SRL) is a research facility located in the Civil Engineering Laboratory Building (CELB) of the College of Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. The SRL has the capability to test full-scale structural components and systems. It occupies 12,000 square feet of space and includes a 50 ft. x 24 ft. reaction floor (36-in. thick heavily reinforced concrete slab), enabling the testing of full-size structures and components. The SRL is also served by a 15-ton capacity overhead crane.
    Major equipment includes a 400-kip universal testing machine, several 200-ton load cells, and two actuators (100-kip and 400-kip) with the required consoles, pumps, and fixtures. The SRL is also equipped with a 400-ton reaction frame and multi-channel microcomputer-controlled data acquisition systems. The hydraulic actuators can be programmed to induce a dynamic load for seismic testing of structures. An assortment of equipment is available to measure applied loads, including pressure transducers, load cells, and single and double acting hydraulic cylinders with hand pumps. An assortment of displacement transducers, including linear variable differential transducers (LVDTs), linear potentiometers, and wire potentiometers, with capacities ranging from 2-in. to 20-in. are available.
    UTA has extensive research capabilities to perform large scale strength and durability testing. UTA geotechnical laboratories house two pieces of repeated load cyclic triaxial test equipment and two others with unsaturated testing capabilities. This equipment can simulate live traffic loading on soil subgrades under different suction conditions.  A large-scale testing chamber with 100 KN load cell capacity is available at UTA for testing strength. Finite element modeling software like ABACUS and PLAXIS and finite difference modeling software such as FLAC are readily available.