With a temperature-humidity regulation, the mechanical testing laboratory operates three hydraulic testing machines for hardened concrete, used to characterize the structural behavior of any civil engineering materials. The equipments include:

The lab is able to perform most standardized tests to characterize the behavior of cementitious materials:

• Uniform compressive tests;
• Measurement of Young's modulus and Poisson’s ratio;
• Direct tensile test;
• Splitting tensile test;
• 3-point flexural test and 4-point flexural test with varying spans;
• Shear test as proposed by Bazant and Pfeiffer (1986).

The lab has also a wide range of abilities to develop tailor-made test setups.

In addition, the lab has also developed original devices to study the different phenomena affecting the behaviour of concrete at early age. The identified parameters can then be integrated in computational models to characterize as precisely as possible the early age stress field and prevent the risk of cracking in concrete. Five devices help build an accurate description of this phenomena:

• An ultrasonic device to measure the setting time;
• A device to measure the autogenous strains under controlled temperature;
• A device to measure the heat released by the cement hydration during setting;
• A device to monitor the modulus of elasticity just after setting;
• A device to monitor the early age coefficient of thermal expansion.