Concrete Crusher at Engineering Open House

I spent many a night in Talbot Hall, where this video was taken.

Kind of sad though that while I'm an UIUC engineering alum I never got to see the concrete crushing in person.

ILL-INI!

Concrete needs to tested before any construction project to ensure it withstands the loads intended for it, I spent a whole summer testing cylinders like this one, although much smaller, for the Illinois DOT. Two samples of a mixture for every project are sent in and tested, if both pass you can assume the method works.

i want to see this done with aerogel

sounds like an auction

hahaha WOW!
Now i want one of that!

Besides that the amount of weight held is quite impressive, imagine having to build a machine that can not only push down with over a million pounds of force, but be able to recognize the moment the object below it gives way and pull back all that downward force.

Once the load cell recognizes that the rate of the load increase decreases with time, that's when the operator stops it.

Or when the concrete breaks :)

oooo

The demonstration is less about the crusher (which is impressive, to be sure) and probably more to show the compressive strength of the concrete.

No.
Just one big safety glass.