SIMOL-Q

Hi, I'm Piero Morelli and I welcome you to this esperimental test on the mechanical strenght of Simol jacks,
These jacks are made in Italy by SIMOL and they are certified to the SAFETY and RELIABILITY requirements of the international standard 12140.

Now, concerning the OPERATIONAL SAFETY, the certification procedure requires the experimental assessment of the mechanical strenght against vertical loadings and side loadings.

In this video we are going to measure the vertical strenght performing a STATIC VERTICAL COMPRESSIVE LOAD TEST.

A DG7 jacks has been mounted to the testing machine using a welded plate connection, according to the SIMOL mounting specifications.

It's mandatory to simulate the real mounting conditions in the most accurate way, since they may have a significant effect on the test results.

Secondly, the jack must be fully extended. This is also required by the standard, since this is the most critical operating condition under compressive loadings.

Now we are ready to start the test.

First of all, we need to approach the jack against the load cell.
After that, we will apply vertical loadings, in increments until the complete mechanical failure of the structure is reached.

We use a console to control the testing machine and log to disk all the experimental data measured during the execution of the tests.

Now, let's turn on the hydraulic power and...set the working pressure required level.

Now we are able to switch to load control mode... and set a start up load of 50 kg.

Let's just wait a few seconds for the stabilisation of the control parameters.

Ok now, we are ready to go, let me switch on the "log to disk" function and...set the target load...

Ok, here we go!

The test has started right now. The machine is applying an increasing vertical compressive load at a loading speed of 180 kg per second.

We can monitor in real time the intensity of the load on the numeric displays from the load cell or on the graphical bar indicator here on the left of the screen.

For instance, we are now loading 7000 kg.
On the upper right display we can also read the compressive deformation of the jack, in millimeters.

All these parameters are saved to disk for off line data elaboration.

We have reached a deformation of 30 mm.

At this point of the test we just have to wait for the structural failure to occur.

The structural collapse is taking place!

The failure conditions are fully met and we can stop the machine.

Let's position the jack in air and shut down the machine in a safe state.

Now we can move besides the jack and take a look at the structural deformation after failure.

We can see the effect of buckling and the overall damage due to the compressive overloading.

Possibly we can also dismantle the jack in order to study the dynamics of failure of the internal components.

These are valuable informations, however the objective of this test is to measure the ultimate compressive strength of the jack.

We use this figure, within the safety factors given by the standard, in order to rate the vertical load capacity of the International Standard compliant SIMOL jacks.

This is one of the most important parameters that we need in order to choose the optimal jack for our application.

Well, that's all concerning the vertical load test, I thank you for watching us, bye!