Clark’s structural lab has many years of experience testing railcar couplers & knuckles. We have multiple load frames that can apply unlimited cycles with loads in excess of 600,000 lbs. We qualify rail coupler in accordance with EN16019 applying load and fatigue testing on rail knuckles, locks, pivot pins and rail coupler assemblies. We test Type E Couplers, E/F Coupler Yokes and H Type Couplers to AAR specifications.

In addition to Clark modular load frames, Clark’s structures floor is 30’ X 90’ with tie-down for 1.5 million lbs. of clamp capacity on a 48” centerline grid pattern.

Clark’s instrumentation engineers set up multiple data acquisition channels measuring strain/load, displacement, stress and strain while collecting multiple channels of data. We use National Instruments, MTS & Somat for control and data acquisition. All instrumentation is calibrated in accordance with Clark’s 17025-2017 Quality Program.

We also provide Mag particle and dye penetrant analysis to assess crack propagation due to the effects of load testing the coupler assembly.