Concrete Research Laboratory Equipment

The Concrete Research Laboratory at the University of Arkansas is located at the Grady Harvell Civil Engineering Center. The Harvell Lab is a brand-new civil engineering facility (construction completed in summer 2021) located on the south research campus at the University of Arkansas.

The Harvell Civil Engineering Center includes a 20,000 sq. ft. high-bay structural testing area with a 25 ton overhead crane and a 100 ft. by 40 ft. strong floor. The strong floor has tie down points at 4 ft. on centers capable of 240 kips of axial reaction force and 220 kips of shear reaction force each. Built-in hydraulic lines connect an MTS SilentFlo 515 hydraulic power unit to two hydraulic service manifolds adjacent to the strong floor allowing multiple servo-hydraulic actuators to run simultaneously.

A detailed description of CEREC and its capabilities can be found at the CEREC webpage: Civil Engineering Research and Education Center | (uark.edu)

Other laboratory equipment and capabilities are listed below:

Standard Concrete Testing Equipment

The concrete laboratory at the University of Arkansas has a variety of equipment for performing standard concrete testing. Current equipment includes:

• Air meter, pressure method

• Super air meter (SAM)

• Forney VFD compression machine (400 kip capacity)

  • Capable of modulus of elasticity, modulus of rupture, splitting tension

• Vicat setting time

• Setting time by mortar penetrometer

• Freeze-thaw chamber

• Intellicure MEGA curing chamber with match curing capabilities

• Aggrameter for instantaneous material moisture contents

• Weather monitoring station at laboratory (online)

• Temperature and humidity monitoring for environmental chamber (online)

• Proceq surface resistivity meter

• Walk-in moist curing room (100 sq. ft. - 100% humidity)

• Walk-in drying shrinkage room (100 sq. ft. - 50% humidity)

Structural Fabrication and Testing

I am particularly interested in concrete structures. We have equipment for making and testing lab scale reinforced concrete and prestressed concrete members.

• Fabrication

  • 8 cu. yd capacity volumetric mixer (CemenTech)

    • Capable of mixing 30 cu. yd per hour

  • 20 cu. ft capacity “Mud Hog MH20” concrete mixer

  • 9 cu. ft capacity drum mixer

  • 4 cu. ft capacity drum mixer

  • 0.25 cu. ft capacity tabletop mortar mixer

  • Variety of concrete formwork

  • Electric rebar bender - will bend and cut up to a #8 rebar

  • Self reacting prestressing bed

    • Capable of specimens up to 27 ft long and 3 ft deep

    • Up to 0.7 in. strands

    • 1,000 kip capacity

  • 1/3 cu. yd. capacity Gar-Bro Concrete Buckets (x2)

• Testing

  • Data Acquisition

    • HBM QuantumX MX840B x 2 - 16 channels of universal measurement for load cells, displacement transducers, etc.

    • HBM QuantumX MX1615B - 16 channels of strain gauge bridge measurement

    • Geokon 16 channel datalogger for vibrating wire type sensors (x2)

    • Geokon handheld data reader for vibrating wire type sensors

    • Dell Latitude 14 Rugged Series laptop

    • Interface load cells (100k and 200k capacities)

    • Geokon load cell (100k through-hole)

    • 8x 4 in. stroke LVDTs (HBM)

    • Type-K thermocouples

  • Enerpac cordless electric hydraulic pump

  • Enerpac aluminum through hole load cell (130k capacity)

  • Enerpac dual acting hand pump

  • Ram-Pac dual acting cylinders (200k capacity x2)