THE DIARY GAME: 04.09.2020: THE LABORATORY EXPERIENCE

Hello steemians out there…shout out to you all…yet another beautiful day, and I am so glad to be a testimony to witness this day.

Today got me this way...I woke up very early today as at 5am in the morning digging deep in to the Word of God. then after that, i tried working on the morning house chores, by 9am, I was through with everything...but I did not wait to eat...trying to catch up with time as scheduled today.

As at 10am, I had already freshened up, getting ready for work...so when I got to work place, I felt hungry so I decided to eat at one of the road side restaurant of which I waited for a long time before being served...
In some few minutes after the meal, I was called by my colleague from office…and then I headed towards the office.

Here in the laboratory…the following laboratory tests was to be carried out on the soil samples I carried from the field a week ago. The test included: Atterberg test (liquid limit and plastic limit, plasticity index).

For the atterberg test, the following apparatus was used: Casagrande machine, sieve size of 425um, air tight container, glass plate spatula, moisture content can, straight edge, and the evaporation dish.

The atterberg test was carried out on the samples to determine the moisture content at which the material passes from a plastic to a liquid state (liquid limit) and also from a semi solid to a plastic state (plastic limit).

Before this was carried out.., I measured some quantity of about 200 grams from all the soil samples I got from the field, and were passed through 425 sieves. I added some quantity of water to it and mixed to form a paste. The paste was then stored for 24hours (that is…yesterday) in an air tight container to enable the water to penetrate through the soil.

So when I came into the laboratory this morning, I then removed the samples from air tight container and kept for about 10minutes. The standard grooving tool was drawn through the paste along the diameter through the pallet so that the section of the cup is seen. Then they handled were turned and the number of blows were counted till part of the soil grove the cup to a distance of 2mm.

Number of blows were recorded and at the end the sample was collected for moisture content determination. More paste was added and test continues for four times. A graph of moisture content versus number of blows were plotted to determine the liquid limit.

These is exactly what happened to the rest of the samples (12 samples) till 3pm and I was exhausted…, very tired…