The Servohydraulic Materials Testing Laboratory, located in 107 Hancock Hall, on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, consists of nine hydraulically-operated load frames which are under the direction of four different departments within the College of Engineering, one research center within the department of Mechanical Engineering, and one research group within the department of Engineering Science and Mechanics. They are the departments of Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM), Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), Mechanical Engineering (ME), and Aerospace and Ocean Engineering (AOE), the Center for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures (CIMSS), and the Materials Response Group (MRG). In addition, the U.S.A.F. at Wright-Patterson A.F.B. is temporarily utilizing laboratory space for one of their proprietary testing machines, making this laboratory an interdisciplinary materials testing facility.
Three of the load frames, under the direction of Dr. Norman Dowling, jointly appointed to the ESM and MSE departments, are specifically designated for undergraduate classroom laboratory teaching experiments during the fall and spring semesters, while the remainder are utilized by their principal investigators primarily for graduate laboratory research experiments in accordance with funded departmental research projects.
Due to the inherent dangers present with high-capacity servohydraulic testing machines, each faculty, staff and student who utilize these machines must be adequately trained in the safe and proper operation of the load frames before they are allowed to operate them independently, without supervision. At present, only two staff members of the ESM department, and one staff member jointly appointed to the ESM and MSE departments are qualified to instruct laboratory testing machine users. Any one of the three staff members may instruct the operation of the equipment, but final qualification as independent operators can only be achieved by submitting to a hands-on testing session by one of the other two staff members.
While utilizing the servohydraulic laboratory testing machines, student researchers are allowed to operate by themselves during normal work hours, with assistance provided by one of the three staff members as needed. After hours, on weekends and on holidays, student researchers are required to have a "buddy" present at all times who can disable or disengage equipment should an incident occur which would put the student in danger of personal harm or serious injury.
Funding for maintenance of the servohydraulic testing machines is provided by the department which is responsible for their own testing machine’s operation, while funding for common maintenance of servohydraulic power supplies and other common laboratory needs is jointly shared by all of the departments who utilize the laboratory. Principal investigators as well as independent researchers are responsible for the cleanliness and proper organization of their individual work areas and must meet all OSHA regulations pertaining to the operation of the laboratory.
Qualified instructors are shown in the table below:
| Mr. Robert Simonds
123-F Norris Hall Blacksburg, VA 24061-0219 phone: (540) 231-7456 email: rsimonds@vt.edu |
Mr. Marshal McCord
105 Norris Hall Blacksburg, VA 24061-0219 phone: (540) 231-5489 email: mmccord@vt.edu |
Updated: August 19, 1998