FINAL PROJECT

(CE3216)
Planning Laboratory Tests, Experimental
Measurements and Errors
SCHOOL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
Dr. DEEPAK T. J.
Planning a Series of Laboratory
Tests
When Carrying out Laboratory or other Practical
Investigations, it is important to ensure that:
a) Appropriate Techniques are used
b) Meaningful Results are obtained

For this reason, it is essential that the test
programme is designed properly and that care is
taken that the correct tests and test procedures
are adopted


Ensuring that appropriate
techniques are used
In order to do this, the following questions must be
answered:
a) Is the correct equipment being used?
b) Is the equipment accurate enough?
c) Does the equipment have sufficient
capacity?
d) Do the tests actually measure what is
intended?

Ensuring that Results are
meaningful
Is the instrumentation being read correctly?
Does it make sense to measure the parameter
that is being investigated?
Are the results reproducible?

Adopting a realistic approach to
Equipment Design
With particular reference to carrying out a final
year project, you will need to:
a) Check what equipment is available
b) If there are costs involved, check that
funding is available
c) Modify your plan if necessary
d) Produce a Time Schedule for the
investigation
Adopting a realistic approach to
Equipment Design
With particular reference to carrying out a final
year project, you will need to:
e) Check whether materials are available.
Order materials if necessary. Find out when
they will be available; allow extra time for
delivery in your schedule
f) If you require equipment to be specially
made, produce drawings or good sketches
including all dimensions, materials and
tolerances
Adopting a realistic approach to
Equipment Design
With particular reference to carrying out a final
year project, you will need to:
g) Then discuss your requirements with the
laboratory technicians
h) Check how long it will take for the production
of the equipment and whether you can do
part or all of the work yourself. The
technicians usually have a long order book;
be prepared that it may take several months.

An Example Will the tests do what
they are intended to?
You have been requested to carry out a load test on an
individual pile which has been designed to carry a working
load of 100 kN
You have obtained a hydraulic jack with a capacity of 120 kN,
with which you intend to apply a load to the pile
You realise that you need something to jack against and so
get the JCB driver to come across and park his excavator (a
JCB 3CX) over the pile
You install the jack between the top of the pile and the
underside of the JCB and set up a frame and dial gauge on
the head of the pile to measure its settlement
Satisfied with the set-up, you start jacking to load the pile

How successful do you think your test will be?

Monitoring the effectiveness of the
Test Procedure
In addition to ensuring that the test procedure is
correctly designed so that the tests provide the
appropriate information, it is also necessary to
monitor the results as the test programme
proceeds
Provided that the tests are undertaken with a
clear aim in mind and that the test hypothesis is
fully understood, it should be possible to judge
whether each of the individual test results seems
reasonable or whether the test procedure may
need revision

Example Assessing Test
Effectiveness
You are testing a 1 metre long concrete plank by
clamping both ends and then applying a central
load as shown below:

Example Assessing Test
Effectiveness
Where would you expect the plank to fail?
In each of the first three tests, a failure occurs 10
cm from the left hand end.
Are you concerned? What steps might you take
to adjust your experimental technique?
In this case, the results are such that they would
cause some concern . In this respect, one of the
first things that might be considered is to revise
the loading configuration.

Example Assessing Test
Effectiveness
In fact, for a bending test of this type, it is more
appropriate to apply two equal loads equidistant
from the centre of the test piece in order to apply
a uniform maximum moment across a wider
distance than for the original loading, which
results in a maximum moment at a single point:

Some Practical Problems in
Designing Tests
In addition to the type of problems discussed
Previously, there are also some other practical
problems that need to be considered:
For example, you may decide that there are
advantages in assessing concrete strength using
smaller cubes than the standard 100 mm size
The advantages here are that you will require less
material and the failure loads will be lower, so that
you might not require a particularly heavy testing
machine
However, can you think of any potential
disadvantages you may find???

A Similar Type of Practical Problem
You have identified a research project to look at
the behaviour of fill materials to highway
structures. The fill in question usually comprises a
range of soil particle sizes from 5 mm up to 150
mm. You are going to use a 60 mm square shear
box for the tests.
Can you identify some of the limitations that your
tests may suffer from?
Can you think of any ways in which these
limitations may be overcome?

Checking that the Equipment works
correctly
You must check that all of the equipment is
working correctly. This includes:
a) Maintenance all necessary maintenance
must be completed
b) Cleanliness not least to prevent errors due
to contamination
c) Calibration should be up to date for all
relevant equipment
Double check all readings.

Time Scheduling allowing enough
time for the Tests
Again, this is a particularly important consideration
for students own final year projects
Before you even start your project you will need
to produce a time schedule that takes account of
all the tasks you are going to carry out
The Golden Rule is that investigations will
almost certainly take longer than you expect.
You must ensure that you allow enough time for
all of the following:
Time Scheduling allowing enough
time for the Tests
a) Time to plan and make decisions on what you
are going to investigate and how you are going
to do it
b) Lead time for preparing, calibrating and
checking equipment, delivery and preparation
of materials
c) Time to carry out trial runs
d) Time to analyse results from trial runs
e) Time to review and if necessary repeat trial
runs
Time Scheduling allowing enough
time for the Tests
Again, this is a particularly important consideration
for students own final year projects
Time to carry out the actual practical investigation
Time to analyse results
Time to repeat some or all of the tests if
necessary
You must allow for any waiting time. For example,
oven drying of soil takes 24 hours, concrete cube
curing takes 28 days.

Using External Data
Again, considering a case primarily relevant to a
final year project, consider the following:

Your employer on your industrial placement is due
to carry out a full scale loading test on a structural
element comprising part of a reinforced concrete
bridge in three months time. She offers you the
chance to analyse some of the results and you
think that this would make a potentially interesting
final year project.
Using External Data
Do you think it would be a good idea to
undertake such a project?
What potential problems do you think may occur
and can you do anything to avoid them?

Potential problems when using
External Data
Repeatability of Results
Repeatability is one of the most important
factors in any laboratory test programme
Individual tests should produce repeatable
results; you may need to check this out by:
a) Repeating tests when you are carrying out your
preliminary testing programme
b) Designing your final test programme so that you
should be able to check the results of certain tests
against each other
You MUST provide enough information in your
final report so that other researchers can repeat
your experiments in order to verify your findings
Taking Experimental Measurements
(A Discussion of Errors)
All experimental measurements that are taken
will be subject to error of some sort
In order to judge how useful the test data is, it is
necessary to estimate how big (or small) these
errors are likely to be
In addition, if the sources of error can be
identified, it may be possible to revise the design
of the experiment in order to reduce their effects

Reporting Measured Values
Ideally, when any value is measured, it should
be reported in terms of both the value and the
expected error
Hence, values will be reported as:
Best Estimate Uncertainty
(This will be discussed in more detail later on)

Types of Error
In simple terms, errors may be broken
down into two distinct types:
a) Random Errors
b) Systematic Errors

Random Errors
The main features of random errors are that:
a) They occur in a random fashion and change
with each measurement
b) As a result, it is possible to reveal the
presence of random errors by repeating
measurements

Causes of Random Errors
Lack of Sensitivity in the Equipment or the
observer (this is the most common cause)
Background Noise to the measurement.
For example, natural variations in temperature or
atmospheric pressure
Failure to define the quantity being measured
sufficiently accurately
Some physical processes are inherently random
(e.g. radioactivity)

Dealing with Random Errors
Random errors are unavoidable they
CANNOT be completely eliminated, although
they may be reduced through good experimental
design
The effects of random errors can generally be
accounted for by repeating the tests and
analysing the results statistically

Systematic Errors
These are errors which are uniform and
reproducible and occur for every measurement
which is made
The effect of systematic errors is to cause a shift
away from the true value being measured, as
opposed to random errors, which lead to a wider
range of readings either side of the true value

Causes of Systematic Errors
Incorrect calibration of measuring instruments
(this will often lead to a zero error)
Faulty Equipment
Incorrect use of the equipment
Failure to account for a relevant effect, e.g. as a
result of making poor or incorrect assumptions
about the way in which the experiments work

Dealing with Systematic Errors
These are more difficult to deal with than random
errors because they will NOT be identified by
repeat testing. Consequently:
a) The major difficulties where systematic errors
occur are in identifying that they are present
b) Once a systematic error has been identified, the
test procedure should be changed to eradicate
the source of the error
c) All test equipment should be properly
maintained and should be calibrated regularly

Taking Experimental Measurements
All experimental procedures will require
measurements to be taken
When any quantity is measured, it is important to
understand that the measurement will never be
EXACTLY the same as the quantity being
measured
Consequently, we need to have some idea of
why the measurement is different to the reality
and also what implications this is likely to have

Accuracy and Precision
These are two important terms which have
clear technical meanings
Accuracy is NOT the same as Precision,
so that a measurement can be Precise,
but not Accurate and vice versa

A Definition of Accuracy


A measurement is said to be Accurate when
it is similar to the true value of the quantity
being measured

A Definition of Precision


A measurement is said to be Precise when a
number of repeated measurements of the
same quantity are similar to each other
An example of a measurement being
Precise but not Accurate
Say, for example, that I decide to measure the
height of one of my students using a 3 metre tape
I do this five times and my measurements are:
1.35m, 1.34m, 1.35m, 1.35m, 1.36m
I could then consider a value of 1.35m to represent a
precise measurement of the students height
However, having finished the measurement, I find that
the first 0.5 m of the tape has broken off. This means
that the answer I have is not accurate the students
actual height will be around 1.85 m and my precise
measurement is not accurate

An example of a measurement being
Accurate but not Precise
Having failed in my initial measurement of the
students height, I decide to use another tape measure
to repeat the process. However, I can only read this
one to the nearest 0.05m
My readings this time are:
1.90 m, 1.80m, 1.85m, 1.75m, 1.95m
This gives an average value of 1.85m
Provided that the student actually is 1.85 m tall, I now
have an Accurate value, even though my
measurements here are less Precise than the first set

Assessing the Accuracy of a given
measurement
One way of assessing the accuracy of a given
measurement is in terms of the percent of absolute
uncertainty of an individual measurement , which
is defined as:


Where M is a specific measurement that has been made and M
s
is the
actual value of the quantity being measured

The limitation here is that you need to know the
value of the quantity being measured.

100% x
M
M M
ty Uncertain Absolute %
s
s

Assessing the Precision of a series

of measurements
In order to access the precision with which
measurements are carried out, it will be necessary to
carry out a series of measurements to determine the
percent relative uncertainty, which is defined as:


Where M is a specific measurement that has been made and M
avg
is
the average value of a series of measurements

The above equation explains why it is necessary to
carry out repeat tests to check whether the test
method is sufficiently precise for the purposes

100% x
M
M M
ty Uncertain Relative %
avg
avg

Quoting the expected level of Error

As noted above, all experimental reports should
give an indication of the expected error in the
measurements being taken
This will often be discussed in an individual
section of the laboratory or research report,
although it will also be necessary to quote
values of measurements which will include an
assessment of the expected

Reporting Measured Values
These should generally be reported to an
appropriate number of significant figures based on:
What is being measured
The level of error in the measurement

The second of these factors may require you to
assess the overall error in terms of:
The accuracy of the equipment being used
The precision to which you can take
measurements

Quoting Results and Errors
Where expected errors are quoted, the results
should be quoted to the same level of accuracy as
the errors
For example, if a persons height is measured as 1.87 m
with a tape where the expected error is 0.01m, then this
would be expressed as:
Height = 1.87 0.01 m
However, if the expected error in measurement is 0.05 m
and the measured height is 1.87 m, it is not appropriate to
quote the value to the nearest 0.01 m, so the height would
be expressed to the nearest 0.05 m as:
Height = 1.85 0.05 m


Levels of Precision and Civil
Engineering Design
One of the facets of civil engineering design that
students find difficult to understand is that
engineers can tend to arbitrarily round off
values in calculations
The reason for this is that in many instances,
whereas high precision is encouraged in many
areas of science, this is not necessarily the case
in civil engineering
Levels of Precision and Civil
Engineering Design
For example, an engineer using an I beam for a
design may have the choice between using two
beams of different consecutive sizes, for which:
Ixx = 408,000 cm
4
and Ixx = 481,300 cm
4

In such a case, it is not necessary to find a very
precise value for the section required a value
to the nearest 1,000 cm
4
will much more than
suffice. In addition, it is also rare that a choice
such as this will be made on the basis of a single
value such as this
Levels of Precision and Civil
Engineering Design
This factor should be taken into account when
designing laboratory tests, although it is also
important (particularly in the absence of design
experience) to follow the general rule of
calculating individual values as precisely as
possible and only rounding up once the final
value has been evaluated