2015 CEE 351 Lab Report Guidelines

Reports should have a cover page, table of contents, report body, and appendix.

The body of the report should contain the following sections:

Introduction: Who prepared the report (e.g. Group 3 of the Fall 2012 CEE 351 Monday lab
section); what the objective is (e.g. “to classify the three soils provided by the TA in accordance
with the Unified Soil Classification System”); what soil was used in the testing (i.e. a visual
description of the test soil that is as detailed as possible) and where did it come from (e.g. it
was provided by the TA).

Reference Standards/Procedures: Please cite the standards or procedures employed in the

exercise. If it is an ASTM standard, give the name and full designation. If it is a non-ASTM
standard or test procedure, give the title and cite the source. If the standard has more than
one way of conducting the test (as many ASTM standards do), cite the alternative you used (e.g.
“Method A of ASTM D1557 was employed in the testing program.”).

Exceptions to the Standards: If you follow precisely the procedure as described in the
standard(s) cited above, this can be just one sentence (i.e. the tests were performed in
accordance with the cited standards.). However, most of the time we will have to deviate from
the ASTM procedure. For instance, we do not have time to mix the soil with water to the
appropriate moisture content and then let it sit for 24 hours to equilibrate. Or, instead of
following the ASTM procedure for determining the volume of a mold by filling it with water and
weighing the water before and after filling, the mold volume may be determined based upon a
measured height and nominal diameter. In these cases, you should say that the test was
conducted in general accordance with ASTM D#&?$-07 and then describe the deviations from
the standard procedure. Also, sometimes the ASTM procedure has options in it. In this case,
you must cite which option you used. You should also describe any problems encountered
during the conduct of the test in this section. For instance, “During initial loading of the test
specimen, the dial gauge used to monitor sample deformation reached the end of its travel
range. Therefore, loading was halted while the dial gauge was re-set on the ring stand. A
measuring block of known height was used to correlate the dial gauge reading before and after
re-setting to establish the appropriate offset to use in determining the total specimen
deformation after re-setting the dial gauge.”. Discretionary factors such as the normal stresses
at which a particular series of tests were conducted should also be cited here.

Results: Cite the results of your tests here. If you are reporting data, just cite the results of
your calculations (e.g. “The natural water content of the soil, evaluated as the average of three
trials with approximately 50 g (dry weight) of soil each, was 24 %.”). If it requires
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interpretation, than say so and explain how you interpreted it (e.g. EXCEL was sued to draw the
best fit straight line though the data, minimizing the error using the least squares method.”).

Some sort of “consistency” (or “sanity”) check should always be included in this section, e.g. soil
classification data should be compared your manual/visual classification, results of strength or
density tests should be compared to typical values from Coduto. If your consistency check
suggests that you values are wrong, just say so and try to explain why they are wrong in the
next section.

There is no “right answer” to lab tests results, and if you get screwy results I don’t expect you to
re-do the experiment. I do, however, expect you to recognize when you have ridiculous (or
physically impossible) results, to call it to my attention, and to try to diagnose where you may
have gone wrong.

Potential Sources of Error: Please explain, in plain English, what you consider to be the most
significant sources of error in your results.

Summary and Conclusions: Nothing new goes in this section. It merely recapitulated the key
points from previous sections, i.e. what tests were conducted, what soil was tested, what the
test results showed, and what possible sources of error are. If you results look good, just say
they appear to be within the range expected considering the precision and accuracy of the test
method(s).

Disclaimer and Signatures: All geotechnical reports generally contain a disclaimer at the end
and it usually goes something like this “This report has been prepared in general accordance
with accepted standards of engineering practice. We are not responsible for the use of the
data or interpretations presented in this report for any purposes other than the purposes
expressed herein unless this use is explicitly agreed to by us in writing. We are not responsible
for interpretations of the data in this report by others.” It may also say “We are not responsible
for the accuracy of data that was generated by others that is used in this report.” The
disclaimer section should be put on a separate page and include a signature block where all
members of the group who prepared the report sign and date it (in practice, this may just be
the engineer in responsible charge of the work or the engineer in responsible charge and a
principal in the firm).

References: The reference section should include all bibliographically correct references for all
citations included in the report, e.g. the source of a table of typical values you sued in your
consistency check (this may often be the Coduto et al. text book). The references should be
complete and in alphabetical order
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Tables and Figures: I suggest you put all tables and figures at the end of the body of the text
(rather than interspersing them throughout the text). This makes edits to the body of the text
much simpler. Tables go before figures (all tables are presented, followed by all the figures).
Tables and Figures are presented (and numbered) in the order in which they are cited in the
report.

Appendix: The first page in the Appendix is a signature page. It identifies what the subject of
the appendix is, who prepared, who checked the calculations, and who reviewed it to make
sure it was complete. Each of these persons must sign off on the appendix for the report to be
complete. Every subsequent page of an appendix is initialed by at least two people: the
originator and the checker. I have provided samples of the cover sheet and a typical calculation
page for the appendix (and posted them to the Blackboard). You may put all calculations in a
single appendix or you may have multiple appendices (e.g. one for each calculation).