Construction Materials Week 2

Familiarization with Laboratory Apparatus and Equipment

• Familiarization with laboratory apparatus and equipment is crucial in construction materials testing to ensure accurate and reliable results.
• Laboratory testing is necessary when field testing indicates further study is needed, and construction materials testing laboratories are equipped with costly and sensitive equipment.
• Delay in testing of construction materials can result in increased project costs and missing project deadlines.

Importance of Familiarization with Laboratory Apparatus and Equipment

• Construction material testing is critical for the viability and safety of a construction project, and familiarization with laboratory apparatus and equipment helps to:
  • Reveal any issues related to construction quality.
  • Highlight future risks and classify a building site.
  • Assist with engineering decisions.
• Without construction material testing, engineers and builders may not know if the quality of the construction meets the requirements.
• Familiarization with laboratory apparatus and equipment helps to:
  • Ensure safe handling of equipment and chemicals.
  • Ensure efficient use of laboratory instruments.
  • Properly use materials and equipment.
  • Understand the results of experiments.

Apparatus and Equipment Used in Testing Materials

• Aggregates:
  • Laboratory Oven: for drying, baking, conditioning, and moisture determination.
  • Muffle Furnaces: for higher temperature heating.
  • Moisture tester: for accurate moisture reading on site.
  • Chapman Flask: for field determination of surface moisture in fine aggregates.
  • Sieves: for separating wanted elements from unwanted materials.
  • Sieve shaker motor: for operating sieves during sieving tests.
  • Sample splitters: for reducing test samples to convenient sizes.
  • Tribometer-abrasion tester: for determining resistance to abrasion and wear of cement, concrete, and similar materials.
  • Rock classification hammer: for rock classification tests.
  • Los Angeles abrasion machine: for determining resistance of aggregates by abrasion.
  • Micro-Deval Testing machine: for determining the quality of aggregates by abrasion.
  • Dry mixer: for drying and mixing materials like powder, cement, gypsum, and granulometric.
• Concrete:
  • Core drill: for removing a cylinder of materials.
  • Extruder: for thrusting out or pressing out materials.
  • Portable rock shear box assembly: for determining the strength and slope stability of rock sizes.
  • Climatic chamber: for testing the effect of specified environmental conditions.
  • Rebound hammer: for assessing the uniformity of concrete in situ.
  • High stiffness flexural frame: for displacement-controlled testing on advanced construction materials.
  • Specimen grinding machine: for grinding and polishing rock and concrete specimens.
  • Circumferential extensometers: for concrete and rock compression testing.
  • Universal testing machine: for testing the tensile strength and compressive strength of materials.
  • Concrete slump test: for measuring the consistency of fresh concrete.
• Soil:
  • Atterberg limit: for measuring the critical water content of fine-grained soils.
  • Plastic limit tools: for measuring the critical water content of fine-grained soils.
  • Shrinkage limit tools: for evaluating the water content of soils where further loss of moisture will not result in additional volume reduction.
  • Proctor soil compaction test tools: for understanding compaction characteristics of different soils with change in moisture content.
  • Spatula: for mixing, lifting, and handling powders, granular materials, and other solids.
  • Soil hydrometer: for measuring suspended solids during testing.
  • Direct shear testing machine: for applying normal and shear stress on the specimen.
  • Penetrometer: for testing the strength of a material.
  • Permeability: for determining hydraulic conductivity or flow characteristics of water or other permeants through soils.
  • Consolidation machine: for measuring the compressibility of soils.