Set among the imposing glass-and-steel buildings of one of London’s most rapidly gentrifying areas is an engineering-related museum that is having to fight for dear life.
The Kirkaldy Testing Museum, in Southwark, is a small but historically important place that has recently existed under the threat of lease negotiations. Its future has been secured for the time being, but the museum is in need of new volunteers and visitors to ensure that it can survive.
Located inside a beautiful yellow-brick building on a busy street, the museum celebrates the enormous achievements of David Kirkaldy, a Scottish engineer whose work set international standards in the testing of materials. Born in Dundee in 1820, Kirkaldy worked as a draughtsman at Robert Napier’s Vulcan Foundry Works in Glasgow at a time when new materials such as Bessemer steels were coming into use. However, there was no established means of testing the strength of such materials, and this encouraged Kirkaldy to set about designing a machine that could fill the technical void.
The result was the Universal Testing Machine – a gigantic machine designed to test all kinds of constructive materials under various stresses such as pulling, bending, twisting, shearing and punching. The machine was installed in Southwark in 1865, and was quickly recognised as an engineering marvel.
Kirkaldy was engaged to test and report upon a host of materials, including cement, bricks, granite, wrought and cast-iron, and timber. Reports of this independent testing works spread quickly, and within two weeks a box of steel arrived from Essen in Germany, with a request from industrial giant Krupp to test and report on the strength of its material. Work soon began to flood in from all over the world, with the machine used to test components for the Eads Bridge across the Mississippi River in 1874. It was also used for accident analysis by testing materials from structures that had failed, such as the Tay Bridge, which collapsed during a storm in December 1879.
While the museum does contain examples of smaller testing equipment and other paraphernalia associated with Kirkaldy’s life, it is the Universal Testing Machine that takes pride of place, and deservedly so. It is a mightily impressive piece of engineering, measuring 15m in length, and 1.5m in width. It works horizontally, with the load applied by a hydraulic cylinder and ram. Precise measurements of loading are read from a sensitive steelyard. Metallic specimens up to 6m long can be tested in tension or compression, and bending tests of up to a 10m span are possible.
The all-up weight is almost 116 tons (117.86 tonnes). The power source is water under pressure, originally supplied from a pump powered by a steam engine. Later, from 1905, the power supply came from the London Hydraulic Power Company (LHP).
The original design allowed the machine to exert a force of one million pounds (453 tonnes). However, the machine was never actually required to be used above 300 tonnes, with the water pressure needed for this load being about 300bar (30MPa). The water pressure supplied by LHP was in the region of 50bar, so to achieve the higher pressure an intensifier was installed and used.
The machine is still in excellent working condition. On certain open days, volunteers still power it up and use it to snap sample materials such as iron bars, as a means of exhibiting its awesome capabilities to delighted visitors. The museum presents itself as the only one in the country where breaking things is positively encouraged.
Despite the enduring performance of its main exhibit, there is a vulnerability about this museum. Its location in the heart of London means it is in danger of being consumed by the modernity of its surroundings. So it needs support – and, if you do support it, you won’t be disappointed. But check the website before going as the open days are very limited.
For more details, see the website: www.testingmuseum.org.uk
Look and learn - Five things to see
1. Powerful beast: The Universal Testing Machine changed the face of testing procedures.
2. Stress testers: Extensometers measure the deformation of a material under stress.
3. Draughtsman at work: A collection of David Kirkcaldy’s historic engineering drawings.
4. Cement checker: The Dogbone Briquette Machine is used for testing the quality of cement.
5. On the ball: The Brinell machine applies a steel ball indenter to a surface with a specified force