You are on page 1of 6

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE

ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY

CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

INSPECTION OF THE TESTING LABORATORY

MATERIALS OF CONSTRUCTION LABORATORY


LABORATORY EXERCISE NO. 1

Performed by:

MARAVILLA, BENNY Y.
PAGARAN, JOHN HARVEY A.
PALMERA, EARL ROBERL M.

Submitted by:

PAGARAN, JOHN HARVEY A.

Submitted to:

ENGR. ROBERT A. ROMERO

November 20, 2017

Page | 1
I. OBJECTIVE

The objective of this exercise is to let the students become acquainted with the Material Testing
Laboratory, to recognize all the equipment, machines, and apparatuses together with its functions
present in the laboratory that will be used throughout the semester, and to be familiarized with the
safety precautions in the laboratory.

II. PROCEDURE

1. Under the guidance of the staff member, visit the laboratory and observe where the general
equipment is located.

2. Inquire on the operation of the compression testing machine.

3. Make a list of the major types of equipment available. Note the units of calibration and the
dial divisions.

III. SKETCH

Floorplan of the Material Testing Laboratory

Page | 2
IV. EQUIPMENT, MACHINES, AND APPARATUSES AND THEIR FUNCTIONS

1. Oven – is a thermally insulated chamber used for heating and drying a substance.

2. Horizontal Air Flow Oven – a machine designed to provide optimal temperature uniformity and
recovery through horizontal one pass air flow without temperature over-shoot.

3. Vicat Apparatus – a device that is used in determining normal consistency and time of setting for
Portland Cements.

4. Sieve – a container with a wire mesh at the bottom that can be used to separate sediment grains of
different sizes. This equipment comes with different diameters for the purpose of properly determining
the particle size diameter of the sediment and provides ease of information for the characteristics of the
sediment.

5. Concrete Mixer – commonly called the cement mixer, is used for mixing water, cement, and fine and
coarse aggregate with ease.

6. Sieve Shaker – a machine that is designed to hold and agitate a stack of sieves for the purpose of
separating a soil of other granular material sample into its component particles by size. In stacking the
sieves, the sizes of wire mesh should be considered. The sieve with the largest diameter of wire mesh is
put at the top and from there, descends to the sieve with the smallest diameter. The samples are always
put first at the top to be properly sieved, and as the sieve shaker agitates, the sample and individual
components of the sample sifts through the largest wire mesh down to the smallest wire mesh, resulting
with a finer size of the particle.

7. Digital Scale – used for determining the weight of a particle.

8. CBR Testing Machine – a machine that is used for penetration test in evaluating the mechanical
strength of road subgrades and base courses.

9. Compaction Mold – is used to remold cohesive soil sample for permeability and tri-axial testing.

10. Manual Sieve Shaker – a sieve shaker that should be operated manually.

11. Rectangular Mold – designed to mold or shapes the concrete in rectangular form.

12. Slump Cone – used to test the concrete’s wetness and dryness and is necessary to be performed
before setting the concrete.

13. Universal Testing Machine – it is used to test the tensile and compressive stress of materials. It is
named after its principle function, which is its ability to perform standard tensile and compression tests
on materials.

14. Compression Testing Machine – typically used to test materials such as plastics, elastomers, rubber,
composites, foam, rock, concrete, and asphalt with its compressive stress. It measures the
characteristics of materials such as its ultimate compressive strength.

Page | 3
15. Elutriator – a machine that is used for separating particles based on their sizes, shape and density,
using a stream of gas or liquid flowing in a direction usually opposite to the direction of sedimentation.

16. Shovel – used for digging, lifting, and moving materials such as soil, sand, and gravel.

V. PICTURES

OVEN AND HORIZONTAL AIR FLOW OVEN VICAT APPARATUS

SIEVE AND SIEVE SHAKER CONCRETE MIXER

DIGITAL SCALE
CBR TESTING MACHINE Page | 4
COMPACTION MOLD
MANUAL SIEVE SHAKER

RECTANGULAR MOLD

SLUMP CONE

UNIVERSAL TESTING MACHINE


COMPRESSION TESTING MACHINE

Page | 5
VI. REMARKS

After listing down the equipment, machines, and apparatuses that we would probably use this
whole semester for this particular subject, we realized that we do not have the proper know-how on
operating these things. And judging from the pictures presented, most of them are old-looking, dirty,
and rusty. But despite these facts, we may be able still learn great things from these old machines and
rusty equipment. It may not produce a performance like the great technology has to offer nowadays,
but it is a start for us students to be able to experience and interact the basics in the profession we are
pursuing.

VII. CONCLUSION

Learning the basics has always been the first step in understanding things. Being familiar with
the laboratory and the laboratory equipment is the main objective of this exercise because throughout
this semester, we will be interacting with materials that are widely used in the field today. Learning the
basics of these machines and equipment will greatly benefit us in the near future. But we did not only
learn about the equipment’s names and functions in the laboratory, we also learned about the safety
precautions before, during, and after performing an experiment in the laboratory. Lacking such
knowledge would only result to ignorance, which is dangerous especially for a Materials Testing
Laboratory. The exercise did not only shower us new knowledge but it also gave us a little spark of
excitement of what being an engineer actually is. So in conclusion, the knowledge we will gain in this
subject will surely benefit us in the long run.

Page | 6

You might also like