Testing on products - for the sake of reliability

At Peikko we would like to do things right. We do 3D-design, we make FEM analysis, we make real-size steel samples of the products and study them further.; And at the end of the day, we need to make sure about the functionality of our products and for that – full-scale concrete tests are many times required.

To plan a test is a science itself. And actually, the plan is much more important than the breaking of the concrete or the steel itself. The test has to really demonstrate a real-life situation of a column, floor, balcony or other object in the building. Tests e.g. related to some new, coming product versions we did last year at the University of Greenwich, United Kingdom.

The reasons for testing are not just when we create new products. In 2012 we proved new calculations referring to EN –standards with regards to our punching shear to work in real life situation at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. See below some pictures of the test set-up.

Sometimes we also want to make sure that products we have been selling a longer time really work and the conventional wisdom is really correct. For this reason we have e.g. done extensive testing of lifting anchor products range with interesting results at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.

To enlarge usage of products to extreme cases we also do further analyses like three-dimensional FEM thermal analysis for PCs corbel in Centre Technique et Industriel de la Construction Metallique (CTICM), France.

For the sake of proving that there are weaknesses in EN-standards and need to be changed in certain sections, we have done tests at the Technical University of Zilina, Slovakia. Sometimes it is better to prove that we are right not with calculations, because physical parts can lead to faster conclusions by the authorities.

During the last year there was also one very absurd case with one of our competitor. The competitor claimed one of our connection products to be unsafe to both customers and to an approval body in one given country. This was the first ever claim in our 48-year history where Peikko were blamed to sell unsafe products.Again, the successful tests on our product at the Technical Research Centre of Finland, VTT, Finland proved the claims of the competitor not only technically baseless, but at the same time convinced the authorities and boosted the trust on Peikko as a reliable partner.>

All in all, these were the tests done during 2012. In year 2013 we will have further development programs, such as Deltabeam tests to be done in North America. We remain committed to make our industry more safe and reliable, now and in the years to come.