TEST RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This experiment was designed to determine the amount of water

required to form a workable cement paste using the Vicat apparatus.
Particularly, the property of cement to be tested here is the normal
consistency. It is required to perform four trials in this test.
For all the trials, the initial weight of the sample was set to 500 grams.
Among the four trials, only one is to be considered in the computation the
trial in which the penetration will be +- 10 mm. The volume of water used at
+- 10 mm penetration and the weight of the sample are necessary for the
computation of the normal consistency of the cement.
After the procedure, for Trial 1, the volume of water used was (insert
the value here) with a penetration of (insert the value here). Then, for Trial 2,
(insert the value here) of water was used resulting to a penetration of (insert
the value here). Moreover, the volume of water used at Trial 3 was (insert
the value here) which causes a penetration of (insert the value here). At the
last trial, (insert the value here) of water was used which produces a
penetration of (insert the value here). The test results to be considered in the
computation are the results of (insert trial here).
Using the given formula, (insert the formula here), the normal
consistency of the hydraulic cement is computed to be (insert the value
here).
In the end, this test also gives us information on how much amount of
water is enough to prepare a paste of cement before using it at the site at
the time of construction. Specifically, there must be (insert the value here) of
water per 100 g of this sample cement to achieve the standard consistency.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATON

The group was able to determine the amount of water required to form
a workable cement paste using the Vicat apparatus, which leads to the
achievement of the objective of this experiment.
After performing the experiment, I can claim that there must be more
or less 30 g of water per 100 g of this sample cement in order for the latter
to be fluid or plastic.

It is important to know the normal consistency of the cement to be

used in a construction. A reason is that only certain or minimum quantity of
water to be mixed with cement is needed to complete the chemical reaction
between water and cement. Less water than its quantity couldnt complete
the chemical reaction which results to the reduction of strain. On the other
hand, more water would increase the water-cement ratio and so would
reduce its strength.
Every experiment done was subjected to error, so was this. There were
several possible errors that may held responsible in this experiment such as:
the vicat apparatus is apparently a new equipment for the students so it is
highly possible to cause some errors in this part; also misperception of
weight of the materials used.
Here are some recommendations to make for the next experimenters,
and for the experiment, itself. For the next experimenters, before doing the
experiment, they must first mix the components of the experiment, because
sometimes small particles of cement are left neglected. For the experiment,
it would be better if the initial weight of the sample will be varying, so that
the groups will see the difference in the amount of water used and the
penetration by the varying initial weights.