1.

12 MATERIALS TESTING
1.12.1 The Experiments 1.12.2 Defining the general objectives 1.12.3 Reviewing previous work 1.12.4 Resources and time limits 1.12.5 Choosing a method 1.12.6 The null hypothesis 1.12.7 The detailed method

The need for new experiments

There are often no methods for calculating material properties. Materials are continually changing. (e.g. cements) New materials (e.g. pultruded plastics for beams) must be tested. Unexpected problems (e.g. delayed ettringite formation) occur with some materials and must be researched. There are generally no complete answers from these experiments.

1.12 MATERIALS TESTING

1.12.1 The Experiments 1.12.2 Defining the general objectives 1.12.3 Reviewing previous work 1.12.4 Resources and time limits 1.12.5 Choosing a method 1.12.6 The null hypothesis 1.12.7 The detailed method

Defining Objectives
It is quite rare to carry out an experiment simply to see if one material is adequate for an application (radioactive waste disposal research is an exception to this). In general durability experiments are aimed at improving a material or method. Thus the aim is to see if the new method works better than the old one.

Possible objectives
will this paint last longer than the usual one will this change to the concrete mix improve its durability. will this change to the concrete mix make its susceptibility to sulphate attack more sensitive to poor curing (this requires multi-variate analysis)

1.12 MATERIALS TESTING

1.12.1 The Experiments 1.12.2 Defining the general objectives 1.12.3 Reviewing previous work 1.12.4 Resources and time limits 1.12.5 Choosing a method 1.12.6 The null hypothesis 1.12.7 The detailed method

Where to find references

Library index systems. References from other documents. Commercial data-bases which are available on line. Many organisations (e.g. the British Cement Association) have large data bases on which they will do keyword searches (for a fee). If you have one paper on the subject a system called the citation index may be used to find others which have cited it as a reference. (science only) The internet... Google Scholar

TYPES OF REFERENCES
Journal Papers Conference Papers Light Weight Journals Company Literature Books Web sites

Journal Papers
These are the best because they are peer reviewed by a technical committee who are experts in the subject. Note, however, that Universities and many other organisations never carry out any internal review Any academic is free to send off anything he wants to a journal. Journals are under pressure to publish easily readable papers. If a journal rejects a paper the authors will often send it to other journals until they find one that will accept it.

Journal Publication Dates

The future of Journal Publishing??

Coventry University has an Athens subscription

Journal Rankings

Changes in journal publishing

Worldwide there are 24,000 journals publishing 1.3 M papers per year. 50 M papers already published. The bulk have now been scanned. New journals being set up using open source author pays model. Great emphasis on citations. Can be tracked with ISI or Google Scholar.

TYPES OF REFERENCES
Journal Papers Conference Papers Light Weight Journals Company Literature Books Web sites

Conference Papers
The review process for these is often minimal. Authors pay to attend conferences. Conference proceedings are normally published in book form. There is often a "supplementary volume" which has even less review.

TYPES OF REFERENCES
Journal Papers Conference Papers Light Weight Journals e.g. New Civil Engineer. These should be treated with caution but they will often give you references to work from Company Literature This is basically advertising and is not externally reviewed Books Web sites

Company Literature

TYPES OF REFERENCES
Journal Papers Conference Papers Light Weight Journals Company Literature Books Text books are normally based on published research. They often have a few errors in them. Some books are more like research monographs and the contents may be new and unchecked Web sites: Generally useless as references because they keep changing

References
The essential point is never to rely on references from a single source, always look for independent confirmation of results. You must remember that most researchers are under considerable commercial pressure to publish papers and, in particular, results that will help them to obtain funding.

1.12 MATERIALS TESTING

1.12.1 The Experiments 1.12.2 Defining the general objectives 1.12.3 Reviewing previous work 1.12.4 Resources and time limits 1.12.5 Choosing a method 1.12.6 The null hypothesis 1.12.7 The detailed method

Resources and time limits

Note that many materials are like concrete in that they take several weeks to achieve their design properties. This time must be allowed for.

1.12 MATERIALS TESTING

1.12.1 The Experiments 1.12.2 Defining the general objectives 1.12.3 Reviewing previous work 1.12.4 Resources and time limits 1.12.5 Choosing a method 1.12.6 The null hypothesis 1.12.7 The detailed method

Choosing a method
The three objectives are: 1. Make it realistic 2. Make it fast 3. Make it cheap These three are conflicting.

The samples
In a real construction environment materials are never in optimum condition.. The difficulties with simulating site conditions are that all sites are different and that all scientific experiments must be designed to be repeatable. One solution is to try to simulate both best and worst conditions. The geometry of the sample may affect durability.

The Environment.
In general real exposure experiments are not very useful because they are too slow. Deterioration may be accelerated with, for example, heat, pressure, applied voltages, or pre-contaminating the samples. Each of these methods must be used with care. Heat slows down sulphate attack. Mixing chlorides into wet concrete makes it less permeable.

1.12 MATERIALS TESTING

1.12.1 The Experiments 1.12.2 Defining the general objectives 1.12.3 Reviewing previous work 1.12.4 Resources and time limits 1.12.5 Choosing a method 1.12.6 The null hypothesis 1.12.7 The detailed method

The null hypothesis

This is a statement such as "treatment X makes no difference to the durability of this product". The experimental data are then used to show that there is a probability of less than 5% of this being true.

1.12 MATERIALS TESTING

1.12.1 The Experiments 1.12.2 Defining the general objectives 1.12.3 Reviewing previous work 1.12.4 Resources and time limits 1.12.5 Choosing a method 1.12.6 The null hypothesis 1.12.7 The detailed method

Multivariate or Bi-variate
Bi-variate means change just one variable and measure another - for example vary the w/c ratio and measure the strength. Multivariate experiments involve changing several variables and testing whether they interact, i.e. whether changing one makes the result more sensitive to changes in another. They are difficult to analyse but can be very powerful.