Universal Panel Tester

Universal Panel Tester (UPT@UH)

The Tester is located in the Structural Research Laboratory at University of Houston. It can perform biaxial or triaxial tests on full-size panels with a maximum edge size of 55 inches and a thickness up to 16 inches. The test panels can represent elements from large-scale structures, such as shear walls, beams, girders, shell structures, nuclear containment vessels, and concrete offshore platforms.

The jacks are controlled individually by a servo-controlled hydraulic system consisting of a 5,000-psi pump, a control board with 60 four-way valves, 0.7 km of hardline steel tubes and high-pressure hoses, and a servo-control system. The servo-control system enables panel testing in either load-control or strain-control modes and has the capability of switching from one mode to another in real time.

UPT is one-of-a-kind in terms of the stress states that it can generate in full-scale test panels. It can apply compression, tension, shear, bending, and torsion loads as well as any of their combinations. The Universal Element Tester consists of thirty-seven in-plane jacks and seventeen out-of-plane jacks. It includes three in-plane rigid links that serve as in-plane reaction supports and three out-of-plane rigid links that are used to maintain equilibrium in a three-dimensional space.

Prospective Users: The following documents provide an overview of UPT’s capabilities: