Materials Testing Center home page

US Army Corps of Engineers
Materials Testing Center

The US Army Corps of Engineers’ Materials Testing Center (MTC) is committed to providing quality materials testing in a timely fashion at a reasonable cost. In addition, MTC supplies inspection services of commercial laboratories for quality assurance and quality control testing. Located at the ERDC Waterways Experiment Station site in Vicksburg, MS, the MTC is the only agency authorized to validate commercial laboratories to work for the Corps of Engineers.


TECHNICIAN CERTIFICATIONS REQUIRED FOR USACE LAB VALIDATION

The MTC now requires that any Laboratory (AASHTO accredited or not) requesting USACE Laboratory Validation will present non-expired American Concrete Institute (ACI) Certifications for those areas of testing requiring such certifications. The Laboratory must have a minimum of two technicians on staff that have the required certifications, based on the test methods performed by the Laboratory, as indicated below:

  • Aggregate Testing Technician Level 1 ---- aggregate testing including ASTM D75, C702, C117, C127, C128, C136, C566, and C40.
  • Aggregate/Soils Base Testing Technician ---- soils testing including ASTM D75, C702, D421, D422, D4318, D2216, D698, and D1557.
  • Concrete Strength Testing Technician ---- concrete strength testing including ASTM C617, C1231, C39, and C78.
  • Concrete Field Testing Technician Grade 1 ---- fresh concrete testing including ASTM C172, C1064, C143, C138, C231 and/or C173, and C31.

Laboratories that do not have these certifications in place cannot be validated for those methods covered by these certifications until they are in place. Proof of enrollment/payment for a certification testing event will not be accepted for validation, only final certifications of the technicians doing the testing will be accepted for this requirement. These certification requirements are subject to revision or change at any time, so please check the MTC website prior to requesting validation of a new laboratory or revalidation of an existing validated laboratory. If the Laboratory has specific questions or issues concerning this policy, please contact the MTC to discuss further.

MTC Experience

  • 700+ Validated Laboratories
  • 100+ Certified Material Sources
  • 350+ Inspections, Audits and Certifications per year
  • 0ver 35 Research Engineers, Scientists, and Support Personnel on Staff
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    Failure of a concrete test cylinder under compressive load
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    Large stone and concrete saw table in the High Bay area
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    Large capacity drum mixer on Mixer Alley in the High Bay area
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    GEOTAC testing (shearing, triaxial, compression, etc) room in the Soils Lab
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    Specific gravity test racks in the Soils Lab
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    Soils sieved and awaiting further analysis in the Soils Lab
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    Processing large-size aggregate in the Aggregates Lab
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    LA Abrasion and sieve shaking machines in the Aggregates Lab
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    Electro-pulse, 5.5Kips, 30Kips, 100Kips test frames in the Load Frame testing room
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    Conducting tensile test in the Load Frame testing room
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    Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) examination room
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    X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis in the Materials Analysis Lab
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    X-Ray Diffraction Analysis in the Materials Analysis Lab
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