Zen Garden Test?

I walked into the lab today to find Juell playing in a Zen garden and asked if he had any real work to do. He explained that he was working. We are periodically tested to keep our AASHTO accreditation, and he was working on a test of fine aggregate specific gravity and absorption.

Blank. Stare.

Here’s what I imagine when I think of “Fine Aggregate Specific Gravity And Absorption”: Sand floating around the moon with very little gravity and a big sponge.

I know it’s wrong, but remember I’m a novice at all this, and I’m definitely not a scientist.

What it really is: A test that measures fine aggregate weight under various conditions – oven dry; saturated surface dry; and submerged in water.

If you’re like me, you’re still looking around to see if you’re the only one that doesn’t really understand.

Basically, it’s like this: We put sand (fine aggregate) through different tests with various moisture contents do determine their weights. We then use those weight calculations to determine specific gravity, which is a fancy way to say we are finding the ratio of the sand’s density to the density of a standard (in our case, water).

If it still doesn’t make sense, you should probably just Google “specific gravity.”

So back to Juell.

He is completing an AASHTO test. LMJ is a certified AASHTO lab, but to maintain that we complete periodic tests. The AASHTO Accreditation Program (AAP) formally recognizes the competency of thousands of testing laboratories to perform specific tests on construction materials.