Mechanical tests

The mechanical characterization of materials (tensile, compression, fracture, bending, ...) applies a wide range of experimental techniques to determine their behavior under various types of loading (monotonic or cyclic, uniaxial or multiaxial) and environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, etc.). The Mechanical Testing Laboratory has 5 mechanical testing machines which, together with various additional equipment and environmental chambers, enable to characterize the mechanical behavior of all materials used in civil applications (concrete, rocks, metals, polymers, ...) subjected to diverse mechanical, thermal and environmental actions.

The mechanical tests that may be performed include those applying tensile, compression, fracture, fatigue, etc.. forces. The available equipment allow to perform uniaxial or biaxial mechanical tests under monotonic and cyclic loads. To record data from tests, a wide range of conventional strain gauge systems are implemented: resistive and capacitive gauges.

The behavior of the material throughout its useful life is conditioned by the environment in which they are, and the interaction between environment and mechanical loads can multiply the effects of both. To evaluate the interaction between environment and materials, the Laboratory has three environmental chambers in which temperature and pressure conditions are constantly monitored, simulating this way freeze-thaw conditions and other common environmental phenomena.

Measurement of compressive strength	Elastic Modulus measurement
Compression test of a masonry wall	Compression test of a masonry pillar
Permeability tester	Measurement of air content in fresh concrete
Measurement of dynamic modulus with ultrasounds	Test tube with strain gages
Climatic chamber	Test tubes in climatic chamber
Test tube with sensors of the degree of saturation