Undergraduate Laboratory for Full-Scale Structural Component Testing

结构工程本科教育缺乏将全面测试与结构设计课程充分结合的能力。我们调查的所有本科课程都是如此；学生试验的是结构材料，而不是结构部件。钢结构、钢筋混凝土结构、砖石结构和木结构的许多最先进的设计程序都是基于行为的特定方面，这些行为在设备齐全的实验室中很容易说明，但否则学生永远看不到。让学生计划和进行测试，展示结构部件在失效时的行为，将直接影响他们理解测试中说明的特定概念的能力，也会影响他们学习相关概念的动机。我们认为，没有这样做的原因是没有一所大学在本科课程中拥有专门用于此类用途的适当设备。本建议书中所述的设备将用于在高等本科结构设计课程中进行足尺结构构件的测试。这些测试将说明影响设计程序的最关键的概念。样本将由学生在二年级水平的实验室课堂上构建，为这些学生提供一个真实的对象来构建，并提供多年学习之间的连续性。这些设备也将被建筑管理专业的学生用来评估施工过程。

Undergraduate education in Structural Engineering lacks sufficient integration of full-scale testing into structural design courses. This is true of all undergraduate programs we investigated; students experiment with structural materials, but not with structural components. many state of the art design procedures for structures in steel, reinforced concrete, masonry, and wood are based on specific aspects of behavior that would be simple to illustrate in a properly equipped lab, but which are otherwise never seen by the students. Allowing the students to plan and conduct tests which demonstrate the behavior of structural components to failure will have a direct impact on their ability to understand the specific concepts illustrated in the tests - and also on their motivation to learn related concepts. We believe that the reason this is not done is that no university has appropriate equipment devoted to such use in undergraduate programs. The equipment described in this proposal will be used to conduct tests of full-scale structural components in advanced undergraduate structural design classes. The tests will illustrate the most critical concepts affecting design procedures. Specimens will be constructed by students in a sophomore level lab class, giving these students a real object to construct and also providing continuity between the years of study. The equipment will also be used by Construction Management students to evaluate construction processes.