Engineering Laboratory Equipment Manufacturer, Suppliers and Exporter in Africa

Lss Africa is leading Engineering Laboratory Equipment Manufacturer,and supplier and Exporter in Africa, Algeria (Algiers), Angola (Luanda), Argentina (Buenos Aires), Armenia (Yerevan), Australia(Canberra), Austria (Vienna), Bahrain (Manama), Bangladesh (Dhaka), Bhutan (Thimphu), Bolivia (Sucre), Botswana (Gaborone), Brazil (Brasília), Brunei (Bandar Seri Begawan), Montenegro (Podgorica), Morocco (Rabat), Mozambique (Maputo), Myanmar (Naypyidaw), Namibia (Windhoek), Nepal (Kathmandu), New Zealand (Wellington), Nigeria (Abuja), Oman (Muscat), Palestine (Ramallah), Panama (Panama City), Papua New Guinea (Port Moresby), Paraguay (Asunción), Peru (Lima), Philippines (Manila)¸ Portugal (Lisbon), Qatar (Doha), Rwanda (Kigali), Saudi Arabia (Riyadh), Senegal (Dakar), Serbia (Belgrade), Sierra Leone (Freetown), Slovakia (Bratislava), South Africa (Cape Town) (Pretoria) (Bloemfontein), South Sudan (Juba), Spain (Madrid), Sri Lanka (Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte) (Colombo), Sudan (Khartoum), Syria (Damascus), Tanzania (Dodoma), Thailand (Bangkok), Togo (Lomé), Tonga (Nuku'alofa), Trinidad and Tobago (Port of Spain), Tunisia (Tunis), Turkey (Ankara), Turkmenistan (Ashgabat), Uganda (Kampala), United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi), United Kingdom (London), United States (Washington, D.C.)

Engineering laboratory equipment is the bench and floor-standing apparatus used to teach engineering principles by demonstration and measurement — testing machines, flow rigs, engine test beds, structures apparatus and instrumented trainers. It differs from school science equipment in that most items are built around a single syllabus experiment or a family of them, and it differs from workshop training plant in that the output is a measurement, not a manufactured part.

LSS Africa supplies engineering laboratory equipment across Africa from its registered address in Pretoria, South Africa, to universities, polytechnics, technical colleges, TVET institutions, research centres and industry. The range covers seven areas: engines, materials testing, engineering science, fluid mechanics, electrical power systems, and civil and mechanical engineering apparatus. The materials testing range alone runs to twenty-two lines, from Hooke's law demonstrations to creep, fatigue and torsion machines.

How do you specify an engineering teaching laboratory?

Specify in four layers: Base, Modules, Instrumentation, Specimens. Engineering teaching rigs are rarely single products. They are a frame or machine, a set of attachments that extend what it can do, the instruments that read the result, and the consumables that get destroyed in the process.

Get the layers in the wrong order and you buy expensive attachments with nothing to mount them on, or a base machine that covers one experiment when it could have covered eight.

This range is built that way. The Universal Testing Machine is a base; the Double Shear experiment fits in the area below its loading platform; the Compression Cage is described as an essential ancillary to the Brinell Hardness Test Set; coil springs, leaf springs and beams mount in the testing machine. The load meter, displacement indicator and extensometer are the instrumentation layer, and a set of steel tensile specimens is the consumable.

Start from the syllabus experiment list, then work back to the smallest number of bases that covers it.

What can a universal testing machine do?

A universal testing machine applies a controlled load in both compression and tension, which is what makes it "universal". The machine in this range uses a steel frame with four columns supporting a hydraulic ram that pushes up a loading platform. The area above the platform is for compression tests on materials such as wood, brick and mortar; the space below it is for tensile tests.

Force sensors measure the load applied by the ram. A digital load meter shows real-time force and stores the peak, and a digital displacement indicator measures vertical movement of the platform. Students combine force and specimen dimensions to find applied stress, and displacement to find strain.

A high-impact clear plastic guard protects the user during tests. The machine is stated to fit any suitable strong bench, with an optional support table and cupboard available.

Which experiments does the materials testing range cover?

Twenty-two lines covering the standard mechanics-of-materials syllabus. Elastic behaviour: Hooke's Law and Spring, Coil Spring, Beam and Leaf Spring, Stiffness — Bending and Torsion. Stress and strain: Beam Apparatus, Unsymmetrical Cantilever, Thin Cylinder, Double Shear, Strain Gauge Trainer and Strain Gauge Kit.

Hardness: Brinell Hardness Test Set with magnifier and graticule, Brinell Indenter, Compression Cage, and a Rockwell Hardness Tester with a four-digit LED display. Destructive and time-dependent testing: Universal Testing Machine, Bench Top Tensile Testing Machine, Torsion Testing Machine, Creep Testing Machine with an 8:1 lever ratio, Rotating Fatigue Machine with variable speed drive, and Energy Absorbed at Fracture.

Integrated: Materials Laboratory With Data Capture, combining a ball indenter for Brinell tests with a digital extensometer for tensile work.

Map these against your module descriptors before ordering. Several are attachments rather than standalone rigs.

What instrumentation should you specify?

Ask how each rig is read, because that determines whether students record numbers or estimate them. Three instrumentation levels appear in this range.

Analogue and direct reading — the Brinell magnifier with graticule, used to measure the indentation by eye. Digital display — the load meter with peak hold, the displacement indicator, the Rockwell tester's four-digit LED, and the digital extensometer. Multi-channel capture — the Digital Strain Display, which accepts up to sixteen channels from strain gauges connected in quarter, half or full bridge.

Sixteen channels is a meaningful figure: it decides how many gauge positions a class can instrument at once, and therefore whether strain distribution can be taught as a whole-structure exercise rather than point by point.

Where results feed into assessed coursework, ask whether data can be exported and in what format. The Materials Laboratory line is described as having data capture; the export path is not stated.

What are the seven areas in this range?

Materials Testing Equipment — the most fully catalogued area, covering elasticity, stress and strain, hardness, torsion, creep and fatigue. Engines — engine test and demonstration units. Engineering Science — general engineering principles apparatus. Fluid Mechanics — flow, pressure and hydraulics teaching rigs.

Electrical Power System — power systems teaching equipment. Civil Engineering Lab Equipment and Mechanical Engineering Lab Equipment — discipline-grouped apparatus for the two largest engineering intakes.

Contents were verified in this pass for Materials Testing only. Ask for a current line list for any other area before building a tender around it.

How does this range differ from the TVET range?

By output, not by subject. Engineering laboratory equipment produces a measurement — a stress figure, a flow rate, a hardness number — for teaching engineering principles. TVET workshop equipment produces a part or a skill — a weld, a machined component, a serviced assembly — for teaching a trade.

The two overlap in four places on this site. Concrete Laboratory, Soil Mechanics, Theory of Machines and Hydraulics and Pneumatics are catalogued underTVET Lab Equipments, while Civil Engineering, Material Testing, Mechanical Engineering and Fluid Mechanics sit here.

If you are equipping a university or polytechnic laboratory, start here. If you are equipping a trade workshop, start with the TVET range. If your institution does both — as most African polytechnics do — ask for a combined line list rather than working from either category alone, because neither one shows you everything relevant.

What should an engineering equipment quotation state?

Seven fields: capacity or working range, accuracy, what the base machine includes, which attachments are optional, instrumentation and its output, supply voltage and phase, and the consumable specimens supplied.

Capacity is the field most often missing and most needed. No load rating in kN is published for the Universal Testing Machine, the Bench Top Tensile Testing Machine or the Torsion Testing Machine. Neither is a torque range, a hardness scale range, or a specimen size limit.

Supply voltage, phase and frequency are not published for any powered item in this range. Confirm both before ordering.

Ask what ships with the base. The Universal Testing Machine is stated to include a set of steel tensile specimens in 'as drawn' and 'normalised' grades, with Brinell, coil spring, leaf spring and beam attachments offered as options — a good model for how every line here should be quoted.

Engineering areas in this category

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Related categories

• Material Testing Equipment
• TVET Lab Equipments
• School Lab Equipments
• All product categories
• Tenders / OEM
• Frequently Asked Questions
• About LSS Africa

Frequently asked questions

What is engineering laboratory equipment?

Engineering laboratory equipment is apparatus used to teach engineering principles through measurement — testing machines, structures rigs, flow apparatus, engine units and instrumented trainers. It is bought by universities, polytechnics, technical colleges and research centres, and most items are built around a specific syllabus experiment or family of experiments.

What is a universal testing machine used for?

A universal testing machine applies controlled load in both compression and tension. The machine in this range has a hydraulic ram in a four-column steel frame; the area above the loading platform takes compression tests on materials such as wood, brick and mortar, and the space below takes tensile tests. Load capacity is not published — request it in kN.

What is the difference between Brinell and Rockwell hardness testing?

Brinell presses a ball indenter into the surface and the resulting indentation is measured optically — this range supplies a Brinell Hardness Test Set with a magnifier and graticule. Rockwell measures indentation depth directly and displays a hardness number; the Rockwell tester here has a four-digit LED display. Both are stocked.

How many strain gauge channels can be read at once?

Up to sixteen. The Digital Strain Display accepts sixteen channels from strain gauges connected in quarter, half or full bridge. That determines how many gauge positions a class can instrument simultaneously, and whether strain distribution can be taught across a whole structure rather than one point at a time.

Are the attachments usable on their own?

No. Several lines are attachments rather than standalone rigs — the Double Shear experiment fits below the universal testing machine's loading platform, and the Compression Cage is described as an ancillary to the Brinell Hardness Test Set. Confirm which base machine each attachment requires before ordering.

What supply voltage do the powered machines need?

Supply voltage, phase and frequency are not published for any item in this range. State your laboratory supply — nominal voltage, single or three phase, frequency and available breaker rating — in your enquiry, and have the machine's requirement confirmed on the written quotation before ordering.

Can LSS Africa quote against a university or ministry tender?

Yes. Bulk and institutional quotations are available on submission of an item list by website enquiry or email, including for government tenders. Send the full bill of quantities with your syllabus experiment list so that base machines, attachments, instrumentation and specimens can be priced as a set.

Request a quotation

Send your experiment list or bill of quantities — including required capacities and your laboratory's electrical supply — and LSS Africa will return a written quotation covering equipment, attachments, instrumentation, delivery and installation.

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