Wednesday, November 16, 2016

By Grabthar's Hammer!

I have not seen it used but in one of the class rooms at Tech there is this gigantic machine.



It is a Tinius Olsen machine that seems to be for testing the properties of materials under pressure.  Near as I can figure you put things into that big vise on the left and scrunch it down. Presumably the Big Needle then moves on the Big Dial.

And if that does not give you some useful data, well, see on the table top that thing that looks like a war hammer?



I think you just pick this massive lead block sledge up and start pounding.

4 comments:

Weetabix said...

Breaking concrete cylinders? Of course, I'm thinking like a civil engineer. It could be for any number of material compression or shear tests.

Weetabix said...

Or maybe for crushing those whose Worvan victims need to be avenged? :-)

Tacitus said...

The device is actually for measuring tensile strength. What the Big Hammer is for I can't puzzle out.

T

Weetabix said...

I would not have guessed that. I'd have expected to see some kind of chuck on the bottom to hold the sample. Good thing for them I'm not running that machine. I'd probably run it backwards.

Maybe the hammer is for knocking samples loose from some part of the apparatus we don't see?