Laboratory Report Writing Information

During the year each student will be required to submit a report on

laboratory experiments which have been part of the course. These reports
will be in the form of standard technical reports and similar in main features
to papers published in technical journals. They must be neat, well
presented.

The Concrete Lab Report-

The Concrete lab is a group effort and therefore a group report is needed.
You should work on the report as a group effort like you did in the lab.

What you need to include in the Concrete Lab Report-

COVER SHEET
All submissions must include the completed “Assignment Completion
Cover Sheet” in the front. Below is described a typical format of technical
reports of which laboratory reports are an example. Only diverge from
these guidelines if you have good reasons to do so. Include the lab title
i.e. Concrete Laboratory, student group members, date, and other
relevant information.

ABSTRACT (OR SUMMARY) [3 marks]

This should expand on the title so that the reader can tell what the report is
really about. It should include:
-how the work was conducted,
-short summary of the results, and
-what are the main conclusions.
It should be a few sentences only and be a concise summary of the whole
report.

Abstract – although concise it should describe everything you have

done and most importantly should say what your conclusions or
findings were.

TABLE OF CONTENTS [2 marks]

This is a list of principal headings and sub-headings and the page numbers
on which they begin.
1 -INTRODUCTION [5 marks]
This is a compilation of relevant background material to put the reader in
the right mind for reading the body of the report. You should not go into
technical details at this stage. A good introduction will normally include:
a) An indication of the importance of studying the given topic
b) Useful background information on previous work including
historical items of relevance
c) A brief statement of the objectives of the work to be reported and,
possibly also, the way these objectives are to be tackled (but do not
give a summary of the report here).

Important information to include in the concrete report Introduction-

 Importance of selecting materials and mix proportions to
achieve the required mechanical properties.
 What are these required properties?
 The purpose of doing this trial batch of concrete?

THE BODY OF THE REPORT

This should not be a title or subtitle of any part of the report, but should be
divided into sections each with an appropriate title. Where the report is a
standard laboratory report the following sections are likely to be
appropriate:

2 -THEORY [15 marks]

Describe briefly the relevant formulae and the assumptions made in their
derivation. Where the required theory is available in a book, technical
paper or document you may present a summary provided that a reference
is made to the particular publication.

For the concrete report, you may focus on the mix design –all
students must include the mix design sheet and comment on the
design. It would be good if you could extend to include the theories
behind the cylinder split test and bending test.

3 –APPARATUS [10 marks]

The reader may not have the apparatus in front of him/her. You need to
describe all the important features and include at least one annotated
figure. This means you need to list all the lab apparatus and equipment
used and describe and explain what they were used for in the lab. You
can use the figures provided on the concrete lab assignment
procedures. If you use them then arrange them properly and neatly
and don’t use one figure per page if you are using many figures. Use
multiple figures per page.. Use your own pictures, please reference
the lab procedure report.

4 –PROCEDURE [10 marks]

Describe how the work was carried out. How did you do the
experiment? Any problems encountered and how they were change
or overcome in the lab. Use the past tense in the impersonal form e.g.
'The beam was loaded in increments of 10N'.

5 –RESULTS [10 marks]

Describe the results obtained. Report the findings that you recorded on
the Concrete Mix Design Form and the Cube Compressive Strength,
Tensile Splitting strength, and Modulus of Rupture Data. Where
possible tabulate your readings and refer to the tables in this section of the
text.

Please take note that in the past here are a few issues with student’s
reports when the reporting the data. For example:
 Too many decimal places in both quantities of materials and
mechanical properties. Note that it is normal to round to the
nearest 5 kg if proportions are for a cubic metre of concrete.
Compressive strength should be to the nearest 1 MPa, i.e. no
decimal points.
 It is the span and not the total length of the prisms that is used
to calculate the flexural strength.

6 -ANALYSIS OF RESULTS [15 marks]

If there is extensive analysis required of the results it may be better to
include this in a separate section rather than extend the results section.
Reporting results is not enough and this lab project needs proper
analysis, so please discuss the results and provide valid conclusions.
You will need to do this for the Concrete Report. Where possible, draw
graphs to show the relationship between different parameters either in the
results section or this section. Graphs are figures that need to be labelled
as such with meaningful captions. For this concrete report, it would be
very appropriate to compare the test results with the expected values
based on your mix design.

Here are some comments for past student’s concrete reports

regarding the analysis of results that you might find useful.
  The mix design was done for you but you should have checked it. I
have been told that in most groups there was water withheld.
What effect did this have on your strength? Obviously, the
water-cement ratio was reduced and thus was the increase in
strength what you would have expected?
 Cube compressive strength versus maximum load? What is the
reason for plotting this? Was it to check that the cube crushing
machine was properly calibrated? What should have been plotted is
the strength you obtained put on the strength-time (age)
relationships. This would have enabled you to discuss whether it is
what you would have expected or not from the water-cement ratio
that you had used.
 Flexural and tensile splitting strengths – there are relationships
between compressive strength and these. For example, a rule of
thumb is that the tensile strength of the concrete is approximately
one tenth of the compressive strength.
 Obtained compressive strengths – were they higher or lower than
what was needed? In either case a revised mix design should have
been done. Contractors will lose money if they supply concrete with
higher compressive strength than it is needed – reason? More
cement is used for higher strength concretes.

7 –DISCUSSION [20 marks]

This important part of the report is a critical appraisal of the findings.
Indicate the expected accuracy of your results and comment on whether
they support the theory. Make sure that all comparisons you can make are
clear to the reader and that their consequences are appreciated. (This is
where you should include your own comments and opinions which would
be out of place in earlier sections).

8 -CONCLUSIONS [5 marks]
This should be a concise summary of the main findings. This should not be
more than a few sentences and could include a list.

REFERENCES [5 marks]
It is essential to reference other publications or source of materials (such
as BOOKS, internet sources). It shows your knowledge of relevant
literature, and honours other people’s work. The use of other materials from
various sources (other than your own creation) without proper referencing
is a serious misconduct. For the concrete lab you can reference the
written materials that you used such as the standards, procedures,
any books or videos, etc.
 Please note that all the tests in your report have been done according to British Standards… and
these should be properly cited in your reports. This is how you can access British Standards via the
library:

 Go to the QUB Library homepage (http://www.qub.ac.uk/lib) and search the library

catalogue for British Standards Online
 On the results list, click on the Resource link
 You may be asked to log in with your QUB ID card number and password
 Once you are connected to the British Standards Online database, search for the required
standard by number or by keyword
• E.g. If you need to find the standard [1] BS EN 12350-2:2000 Testing
fresh concrete: Slump test, you can search for the core number BS EN
12350-2:2000, and / or you can search for keywords from the title. Adding
title keywords to your search can be helpful, if you get a large number of
search results.

• Have a close look at the results list, to identify the document you need. Many standards have
multiple parts, with similar numbers and some standards have old superseded or
withdrawn versions.
• If you are not sure whether you have found the right document, you can click on the
document number to see more information about the document.
• To download a standard, click on the PDF symbol to the right of the document.

Please note – terms and conditions:

• Please only download and/or print a single copy of any document from the British
Standards Online database. It is not permitted to download and/or print the same
document multiple times.
• If you reproduce any content from British Standards Online in another document, the copied
content must contain the phrase "Copyright BSI Standards Limited © [Date]" (where [Date]
is the date of the copying)