The 10,000 square-foot Structural Engineering Teaching and Research Laboratory (SETRL) opened on Villanova’s campus in June 2005. The facility provides a unique environment where faculty and students, both undergraduate and graduate, work together to perform tests on a variety of full-scale structural elements. The state-of-the-art facility has the necessary floor space and height to accommodate simultaneous testing structural members up to 100 feet in length and two-story structural frames under both static and dynamic loads.

Highlights of the facility include:

• 5000 square feet of reaction floor (100 ft. x 50 ft.) to allow for maximum flexibility in experimental test setups. The concrete reaction floor is a box beam construction having a 3' thick top flange, 8' rib walls (basement), and 2' thick bottom flange. High capacity anchor inserts on a 2’ grid allow for load to be transferred to the floor during testing.
• An 18’ long by 12’ wide by 22’ high reaction wall “corner” to allow for lateral loading of structural frames. The reaction wall utilizes anchor inserts on a grid similar to those in the reaction floor.
• Four structural steel testing frames capable of supporting five MTS servo-controlled hydraulic actuators. These actuators may be used to test under static or dynamic conditions using displacement-control or force-control. The actuators (three 110 kip hydraulic actuators and two 35 kip fatigue rated actuators) are powered by a 60 gallon-per-minute hydraulic power supply.
• A 400 kip self-reacting test frame fitted with dedicated hydraulic loading and data acquisition equipment for testing of specimens less than 16’ in length using either concentrated or uniform loading conditions.
• A 700 square foot small-scale component testing room and machine shop, outfitted with multiple self-contained testing machines. These machines allow for static and dynamic testing of concrete cylinders, steel coupons, and other smaller specimens under a variety of loading conditions. The machines include a 600 kip Forney compression testing machine and two MTS universal test machines, 100 kip and 22 kip capacity.
• A 450 square foot environmentally controlled testing room to allow for the testing and storage of specimens under controlled temperature and relative humidity conditions. The room includes a low-level reaction floor with threaded inserts on a 2’ grid, and is particularly useful for testing involving environmentally sensitive materials such as wood, concrete, and composites.
• A wet room for curing of concrete cylinders and other specimens under saturated conditions.
• A 25 ton overhead crane to facilitate the handling of test specimens on the reaction floor.
• Five PC based data modular acquisition systems which allow for collection of data during high rate dynamic or static testing.
  
• An inventory of instrumentation including sensors for measuring load, strain, acceleration, displacement, rotation and temperature.
• A conference room, student and faculty workstations, and storage space.

The laboratory is used by faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students for funded and unfunded research studies, for several undergraduate courses, and for student extracurricular projects. Ongoing research studies include investigations of:

• Open-web steel joists with wood nailer (top-chord) attachments,
• Castellated and cellular steel beams
• Reinforced concrete members reinforced with fiber reinforced polymers (FRP)
• Self-consolidating concrete for retaining walls and bridge piers
• Wood I-joists with web openings
• Innovative damping materials for wood-frame shear walls

Donors to the laboratory

• Villanova University
• W.M. Keck Foundation
• National Science Foundation
• SMI Joist Company
• Estate of Thomas M. Rockett ’44
• Estate of Anthony F. Calapristi ’40
• O’Donnell & Naccarato
• MTS Systems Corporation

Machine Shop

The laboratory also has access to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering's machine shop. This shop houses tools and machinery, including a welding machine, band saw, a magnetic drill press, and numerous power tools.
 

Contact Information

Joseph Yost, Laboratory Director