A Facility for Static and Fatigue Testing of Large Structures

In 1958, the Construction Equipment Div. of the International Harvester Co. engineered a new and radically different line of tractors and earthmovers. The machine components, being new and different, had to be thoroughly tested in the laboratory so that production releases could be safely made without extensive durability testing in the field. The components to be tested ranged from very small to very large -- the small ones weighing less than one pound and the large ones weighing thousands of pounds.

What type of facility is necessary to test structural dements statically and under fatigue loading? The paper presents one answer to that question which has proved successful. A number of illustrations are included to show the construction of this facility, and the equipped facility in operation.