Civil and Environmental Engineering

Richard & Jean Higgins Materials Testing Laboratory

The Richard & Jean Higgins Materials Testing Laboratory is where we break stuff… We have two Instron testing machines, one at 10,000 lbs capacity and the other at 30,000 lbs capacity. These machines are used for testing the strength of various materials and are regularly used in labs. There is also the grandfather of them all, a Baldwin testing machine (retrofitted by Instron) from the 1940’s that can pull in tension or crush in compression 800,000 lbs!  It is one of the larger capacity machines in the state of Maine.