At Structural Mechanics we have a long tradition of studying wood and wood-based materials. Typical topics include testing of material strength, stiffness and fracture energy, load bearing capacity of components and joints and dimensional stability during drying. Studies have included properties of wood, paper-, fibre- and composite materials, as well as properties of glued joints and engineered wood products (glued laminated timber, cross laminated timber). Materials studied also include concrete, fibre reinforced composites, structural glass and elastomers like rubber.

The Structural Mechanics lab can provide equipment and expertise in mechanical testing of various materials, including quasi-static testing, fracture mechanics, dynamic tests, fatigue and vibration testing. The results are typically used to evaluate the characteristics of different materials, components or joints or to validate material models or other types of calculation models of real structures.

The department has access to advanced measuring equipment such as a servo hydraulic tensile test machine, accelerometers, load cells, shakers to provide dynamic loads and the possibility of performing non-contact measurement (digital image correlation, DIC).