Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Soil Mechanics Laboratory: A Guide For Preparing Laboratory Reports
Soil Mechanics Laboratory: A Guide For Preparing Laboratory Reports
Soil Mechanics Laboratory: A Guide For Preparing Laboratory Reports
Soil Mechanics
Laboratory
A Guide for Preparing Laboratory Reports
Dr. Mehrdad Razavi
Page
1
Laboratory Testing and Preparation of the Report
Laboratory testing of soils for their engineering properties is an integral part in the
design and construction of foundations on soils, specifications for quality control,
and improvement of soil properties. Design and construction using soils requires
the use of fundamental theoretical and empirical relationships. Indices (or
parameters) obtained in the laboratory or in the field are used to solve design
equations. With careful laboratory testing, it is possible to determine the physical
parameters used in these equations with a high degree of accuracy and
confidence. As field soil conditions vary to a great extent, it is important to define
the range of values for certain parameters while those values deemed critical (i.e.
worst case conditions) may also needed to be identified.
Lab procedures require that the student become familiar with the testing
procedure before beginning the test. Sample preparation is critical to good test
results. Determine how and when data is to be recorded and in what format. It is
always good to record data directly onto the lab sheet provided. If scratch sheets
are used for recording any data, retain them; they may contain valuable
information not transferred to data sheets. After your reduced data is approved,
final lab data sheets must be completed using a black pen. No light writing or blue
ink will be accepted, as the data sheets will not reproduce.
Lab Organization
Lab Report
The organization of lab reports is very important. One of the goals of this course
is to learn to write a clear, concise, high quality technical lab report. The format
for the reports required in this course is provided herein. Even though the format
appears simple, past experience with students has demonstrated that, report after
report, most students have great difficulty with writing and continue to make the
same mistakes in organization and editorial phrasing from report to report.
2
Lab reports will be typed. All figures, tables, and drawings should be prepared by
using computer programs. No handwritten notes, figures, tables, etc. are allowed
in the main part of the report. However, the data sheet filled in during the lab will
be attached as an appendix in the end of the report. The following writing
guidelines in writing lab reports should be used:
1. Do not use first person; technical reports are written in third person.
Font
Use 12 points (1 point = 1/72 in.) for the font size of the report. Never use more
than three different fonts in your report. Times New Roman, Georgia, and Arial
fonts are preferred. Use bold for the first level titles, italic bold for the second
level titles, and regular style for the text.
Print your report on only one side of white letter size paper (8.5 in. × 11 in.) and
consider 1.5 in. for the margins (top, bottom, left, and right). Align the text to
both the left and right margins. Use double spacing style for the distance between
lines.
Page Numbers
Insert page numbers at the bottom center of each page, 0.75 in. from the bottom of
the page. All pages except the cover page must have a page number starting at
page 1.
3
Arrangement of the Report
1. Cover page
The cover page is the first page of the report and it includes name of the test,
report number, names of the group members, date of the test, and due date of the
report. Figure 1 shows a sample cover page.
4
2. Table of Contents
After the cover page is a table of contents, which should cover all the titles used
in the report. The titles are written with the same font size and formatting as in the
report. Additionally, all the words in titles should generally be capitalized.
3. Introduction
5. Test Procedure
This section is also to be very brief, however concise. If the procedure is done
according to ASTM standards, there is no need to reiterate it; simply include a
reference to the ASTM standard procedure followed from the reference book in
the lab.
This section includes reference to the lab data sheets (to be placed in the
appendix), and a summary of the results arranged in tables. The result section is
the most important part, is often the shortest, and is followed by a well-written
discussion. Discussion, however, is usually the hardest section to write; in the
discussion try to present the principals, relationships, and generalizations shown
by the results. A discussion of the results should address only relevant results
illustrated in your tables and figures.
5
Never use the phrases “As you can see…” or “It is apparent that…” in the
discussion. Instead, give a clear, concise evaluation of all test results. Do the
values you obtain represent typical values? Were the results expected and why?
For this class, result accuracy is less important than recognition and discussion of
non-typical results. Testing accuracy and possible sources of testing error need to
be highlighted.
8. References
It is necessary to prepare a list of the references you used to prepare your lab
report. On the references page, list authors in alphabetical order and use the
following formats for the references.
a. Books
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., and Author, C. C. (year). Title of book: Subtitle.
(Edition [if not first]). Place of publication: Publisher.
Example:
Holtz, R. D. and Kovacs, W. D. (1981). An Introduction to Geotechnical
Engineering, 1st Edition, Prentice Hall.
b. Thesis
Example:
Jones, H. C., Cross, W & Smith, K. M. (1999). Get your dissertation done.
Baltimore: University of Baltimore Press.
6
c. Journal or Conference Papers
Author(s) Year, ‘Article Title’, Journal Name, vol. Volume, no. Issue, pp. Pages.
Example:
Seaman, C.B., Mendonca, M.G. & Kim, Y.M. 2003, ‘User evaluation and
evolution of a prototype management tool’, IEEE Transactions on
Software Engineering, vol. 29, no. 9, pp. 838-51.
d. Websites
Author. (Date published if available; n.d.-no date- if not). Title of article. Title of
web site . Retrieved date. from <URL>.
Example:
United Nations Environment Programme (2001). Environmental Aspects of
Phosphate and Potash Mining. Retrieved January 2008. From
www.mineralresourcesforum.org/docs/pdfs/phosphate_potash_mining.pdf
9. Appendices
All lab data sheets will be placed in an appendix or appendices, depending on the
number and type. Each appendix requires a cover page properly labeled.
Tables and figures must be prepared neatly, always centered on a page with a
proper centered title or caption. They are referred to in the text as “Table X” and
“Figure Y,” capitalizing the first letter, followed by a number. Figure caption is
positioned at the bottom of the figures while table title is positioned at the top of
the table. Descriptions of tables and figures must be presented before them.
For figures, general plotting routines (Grapher, MS-Excel, MATLAB, etc.) must
be used and axes must have units. Data points must be well defined. If a point on
the plot is on a wrong place the errors that caused wrong results must be
mentioned. Footnotes are appropriate for explanation or clarification, using
superscripted numbers or small cap letters. Tables should be boxed in for
neatness, and should appear entirely on one page. An example of using tables and
figures is given below:
7
Table 1: Liquid limit results.
Acknowledgement
8
Grading Rubric
The lab reports will be graded according to the following rubric. Attach a copy to
your report as the last page.
Report Title 1
Report Number 1
Test Date 1
Due Date 1
Introduction – concise 3
Clear Statements 10
Third Person 5
30 Writing
Style – use active voice wherever possible 10
Table of Contents 2
Titles 2
References 2
Clear Print 2