The SMFSRE is a comprehensive testing system to evaluate the performance and distress mechanism of structure and materials of transportation infrastructure by full scale accelerated loading tests. The tests can be performed under simulated given natural environment conditions by controlling the environmental factors, including air temperature, rainfall, solar radiation, wind, ground temperature, and groundwater level. The SMFSRE consists of two different full-scale loading simulators: Natural Environment - Automatically Loaded Track (NE-ALT) and a Controlled Environment - Multiaxial Loading Facility (CE-MLF),. Both loading simulators are capable of applying standard or heavy-loaded dynamic axle loadings, which can support related studies in road, airport, and railway engineering.

Aims

The SMFSRE was proposed to meet the urgent needs of service performance and safety assessment of major transportation infrastructure in China. A full scale accelerated test facility was constructed, which can couple the special natural environmental factors of various regions with the complex vehicle load in tests. It provides a sophisticated platform for the basic and applied basic research in road, airport, and railway engineering.

Testing Capability

1.Performing full-scaled accelerated loading tests of transportation infrastructure in natural environment;

2.Performing large-scale accelerated loading tests of transportation infrastructure in simulated environmental conditions of various regions.

Research Scopes

1.Effect of environmental conditions of various regions on the pavement performance;

2.Dynamic responses of materials and structures of transportation infrastructure coupling with environmental factors and complex vehicle loading;

3.The service behavior of pavements under the environmental conditions of special regions by accelerated loading tests;

4.Strategies for failure/distress prevention and maintenance for pavement structure under the environmental conditions of various regions;

5.Validation of laboratory tests and analysis methods for establishing the correlation between laboratory testing results and on-site measurements;

6.Evaluation of the effectiveness of pavement maintenance methods;

7.Verification of the reliability of the designs of public roads, bridges, airport pavements, and railways.

Advantages of the Facility

1.The SMFSRE can simulate the extreme service conditions of transportation infrastructure by coupling various environmental factors and complex vehicle loads in full scale test, which reaches the top level in the world.

2.The SMFSRE provides a platform to perform multi-factor experiments according to the actual needs by combining various environment and load spectrums flexibly, which can support the solution of materials and structure problems of transportation infrastructure in the environment, scale and time domain.

Controlled Environment - Multiaxial Loading Facility (CE-MLF)

Natural Environment - Automatically Loaded Track (NE-ALT)

Overall view of the laboratory

      Freeze-thaw test machine                                          Aggregate Density Tester

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