Chamber Compression Load Testing

EPIC-TR-01 reports the two independent laboratory tests on record for the EPIC conveyance chamber, commissioned nine years apart by different people at different laboratories and measuring different things, and sets out how their results may and may not be used in specifications, submittals and technical correspondence.

The first is a 2018 compression test to failure on the SM24 small chamber by Construction Materials Engineers, Inc. of Reno, Nevada. The second is a 2009 series of plate-load tests by American Engineering Testing, Inc. of St. Paul, Minnesota, across six profile build-ups, two of them with mesh reinforcement in the sand. The report explains that the two answer different questions, how much load the chamber survives and how much the surface moves under service load, and that their results are not on the same basis.

A section on limits sets out, in the terms a reviewing engineer would raise them, what the evidence does not support, including the absence of a published test standard, a professional engineer's seal, replicate specimens and live-load testing, and gives a recommended form of words for specifications and submittals. A closing recommendation proposes a four-part test programme to turn the evidence into a value that can be written into a specification.

The report is a companion to Volume 1, Design Manual & Strategy, section 4.1, and is written for the specifier who needs both questions answered and for the reviewing engineer or authority assessing the evidence. The source documents behind it, including the recorded test footage, are listed with their issuing laboratories and dates.