The Structures Laboratory was established in 1991 as one of the experimental facilities of the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of Patras. In 2001 the lab was moved into a new building with unique characteristics – the lab still constitutes one of the largest installations in Europe and the largest and better equipped in Greece.

This experimental facility focuses on testing engineering structures and comprises a strong floor and two strong walls. The system of the strong floor-reaction walls is used for cyclic or hybrid (pseudo-dynamic) testing of earthquake-excited components, subassemblies or small structures. Its versatile configuration may be used for a variety of other test configurations of structures.

The lab is equipped with an ensemble of seven servohydraulic acturators controlled by a state-of-the-art digital control system and completed with a 128-channel data acquisition system. Pumps and additional accumulator units provide the power for tests ranging from quasi-static to dynamic ones.

The experimental work performed is accompanied by an intensive analytical part in the area of nonlinear dynamic analysis of structures that led to the development of the nonlinear code ANSR-UoP.

The activity of the lab over the past 20 years is depicted by the large number of competitive research projects carried out successfully, a considerable number of doctoral and Master’s theses produced and publications in international journals.