Research Facilites

The Civil Engineering Experimental Teaching Center of SEU is composed of 26 specialized laboratories, including the geotechnical laboratory (established in 1937), engineering mechanics laboratory (established in 1937), hydraulic laboratory (established in 1941), structural engineering laboratory (established in 1946), water engineering laboratory, engineering management information laboratory, engineering construction training center and structural innovation experiment base. It is also divided into five platforms, namely the engineering mechanics experiment platform, engineering structure experiment platform, municipal engineering experiment platform, engineering management experiment platform, and civil engineering practice and innovation experiment platform. It was approved as a national civil engineering experimental teaching demonstration center in 2008 and a national civil engineering virtual simulation experimental teaching center in 2014. The annual experimental classroom teaching hours exceed 30,000 per person.

At present, the center has 14 full-time faculty members, including one professor, one professor-level senior engineer, four senior engineers, nine doctors, and four experts. The center has a laboratory of more than 12,000m², with fixed assets worth more than RMB 80 million and more than 2,000 pieces of instruments. The main equipment includes the 4 × 6m one-way seismic shaking table system, MTS multi-dimensional structure loading system (a total of 12 actuators of 1,000KN, 500kN and 250kN), 15m and 10m high L-shaped reaction walls and reaction pedestal systems, MTS 100-ton fatigue test machine system, MTS 50-ton fatigue test machine system, 1,500-ton compression shear (200-ton horizontal) system, vertical and horizontal fire test furnace system. A 6 × 9m three-direction, six-degree-of-freedom large-scale shaking table, for which the center raised more than RMB 45 million, has arrived and will be put into use by the end of 2020.

Micro-observation testing system of civil engineering materials

Basic experiment platform of civil engineering

Large scale engineering structural test platform.

SCE is equipped with state-of-the-art instruments to support various R&D projects, such as the shaking table and earthquake simulation system, large-scale furnaces and fire testing facilities, reaction walls and supporting system, nanoindenter, and CT-scanner. The total area of its laboratory is about 13,000m², and the total value of laboratory facilities exceeds RMB 500 million (about USD 72 million). The testing system can support experiments from the nano-scale level to full-scale structure level, as shown in the following figures. About RMB 120 million (USD 17 million) was invested in constructing the shaking table, which is the largest stand-alone structure in the world.