The Iron Giant
See the Southwark-Emery Universal Testing Machine in action for one of the last times.
Assembled in 1929, the two-story tall machine can load up to 3,000,000 pounds in tension or compression and can measure the applied force within one tenth of one percent. The Southwark-Emery has a wide range of testing uses, such as strength of MRI shells, load cell calibration (tension and compression), cable anchor testing, girder-plate beam failure tests, load pin calibration, hydraulic ram calibration, and crane hook proof testing. Engineering departments including MechSE actually use this machine to do testing for companies, such as tensile testing a steel bridge component. Illinois’ Southwark-Emery is one of three in the United States located at a university (another one is at the University of California, Berkeley).