Undergraduate Laboratory for Full-Scale Structural Component Testing

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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.