AASHTO re:source Q & A Podcast
AASHTO re:source Q & A Podcast
Common Findings in Aggregate Testing - Part 2
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How familiar are you with fine and coarse aggregate specific gravity tests? Does your knowledge surpass Kim's? It's not difficult, but find out as we discuss some of the most common nonconformities for AASHTO T 84/ASTM C128 and AASTHO T 85/ASTM C127.
Related information:
- Common Findings In Aggregate Testing
- S4 E34: Common Findings in Aggregate Testing - Part 1
- S2 E31: Top Nonconformities for AASHTO T84 and ASTM C128
- Top Nonconformities AASHTO T84 and ASTM C128
- S2 E05: FAQ - Which report findings are required to be resolved?
- How to Resolve AASHTO re:source and CCRL Report Findings
Have questions, comments, or want to be a guest on an upcoming episode? Email podcast@aashtoresource.org.
Related information on this and other episodes can be found at aashtoresource.org.
Welcome to Ashto Resource QA. We're taking time to discuss construction materials, testing, and inspection with people in the know. From exploring testing problems and solutions to laboratory best practices and quality management, we're covering topics important to you. Now, here's our host, Brian Johnson.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Ashto Resource QA. I'm Brian Johnson.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Kim Swanson. We are here again with one of the fun episodes that I love so much. And this is actually part two of the common findings for aggregate testing. So in part one, we talked about equipment and then T11 and C117 and the gradation. So what are we talking about, Brian, this time around?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so next we're going to talk about specific gravity tests. We've got the course and the fine. Which one do you want first?
SPEAKER_02Let's do fine.
SPEAKER_00Fine aggregate. Okay. So this is the one with the cone and the tamper. So what you do is you take are you familiar with the the cone and tamper?
SPEAKER_02I mean, just from the podcast. I haven't actually seen it uh at all. So, but yeah, okay. I'm ready for it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so what you do is you get fine aggregate and you bring it to the saturated surface dry condition, which you determine by you get it, you get it it m you moisten it. It's imagine it's a moist aggregate and it gets to this wet sand on a beach. Yeah, like wet sand on beach. Thank you. And and so imagine you have like a you're at the beach and you're making a sand castle. So it's like a little sand castle mold, okay, which is the cone. So you you put the the it in when it's at SSD condition, the saturated surface dry condition, it's a bit fluffy. So you you put this in there, this like uh wet sand into the um into the cone, and you drop this tamper on it.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Imagine like a fat marker.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00Something like that, like about that size.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00With like a in in the the tamper, the tamping part is I think it's like a 25 millimeters. Okay. So like the size of a quarter. Okay. Um that helps.
SPEAKER_02It does. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, or or about a pound if you're British and you're listening to this, about that size. So you so you imagine dropping that like not very high up, because you're just like you overflow the cone and you kind of just like gently drop it uh 25 times and and uh and it and it pushes it down, and then you remove the cone. And if it slumps slightly, then it's in SSD condition.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so the mold you're tamping the mold down.
SPEAKER_00You're tamping the mold. Uh sorry, let me clarify that. So the mold has an opening at the top. Okay. So imagine an open cone.
SPEAKER_02So you've got a cone, like a traffic cone with the traffic cone with the with a thing cut. Okay, I'm I'm picking up what you're putting down. I got it.
SPEAKER_00That's right, that's right. And the in the tamper is fits right in there or kind of fits in there easily. Like it's it's a smaller diameter than the opening of the top of the cone. Okay. And you can kind of go around in a circular motion to get it tamped down. Um, but anyway, you get to that SSD. Once you're at SSD condition, you take your material and you put 500 uh plus or minus 10 grams into a um flask, a volumetric flask that already has water in it, and then you that's already been tear. So you you you know what the mass is with water in it. So then you can weigh that SSD condition material in the picnometer, and then you evacuate the air from it by shaking. You bring it up to temperature and up to the volumetric level, and you determine what the mass of your saturated surface dry material and water is at temperature. And then you also, because you've already done this beforehand, you know what the mass of the volumetric flask is just with water in it at that temperature, and you know what the mass of your dry flask is, uh, and you perform a calculation. And uh, and you know what your your um your various masses are uh that I just mentioned. So you do you you run the calculation and you get a result of specific gravity.
SPEAKER_02Okay. I'm ready. Are you ready for my guess of what the most one of the most common findings are for that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Before I get it, did I miss anything? Is there anything specific gravity is like if it helps to it won't help, but if it if it helps the the density of water is is one in this scenario, or it could be close to one at the temperatures we're talking about with and it's not distilled water. Um, but like anything they're all these are the results that you get for specific gravity are all relative to that number. So like you would expect a number above one, like kind of higher above one, or like somewhere around like 2.5 ish, somewhere in that neighborhood for a reasonable result. Okay, okay, all right.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna say side note before I guess uh picknometer, one of my favorite words for no reason, and the transcription always gets it wrong. So if you're listening to this podcast and you want to see how the automatic transcription says pycnometer, you can go to this point in the transcription and see the butchering of that word. Anyway, sorry, it's just one of my I'm interested in that.
SPEAKER_00I can't see the transcription right now. I should do that so I can enjoy that. Yeah, it's always wrong, but anyway, but if you well, you know what else is always wrong. So, like I'd say probably six or seven times out of ten when somebody's referring to the pychnometer, they say pinkometer. No, it's not a measurement of how pink something is.
SPEAKER_02I wish though that I mean I'm sure that exists, but anyway, we digress. One of the top nonconformities for fine aggregate big the fine aggregate gravity specific gravity. I'm guessing has to do with calculations. There's an error with the calculations.
SPEAKER_00That's a great guess, but no, gosh darn it, that is where I would mess up on that.
SPEAKER_02Okay, it's not one of them. Can I give another guess?
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_02Uh I think that the tampering isn't good.
SPEAKER_00The tampering is not good. I might just so I did put in the notes that as the last item because I was trying to, I was like, this there's gotta be something about that. So I'm I'm searching through these hundreds of findings that have been written over time, and I'm looking for for keywords that would help me identify that there has been some incorrect tamping or incorrect uh determination of the slump. And there is, but it's not, it's like collectively, it's something like the different things that have could have could have gone wrong with the determination of the SSD condition. Um, but there wasn't like one particular item that really jumped out. But there were there were issues, there were disagreements about whether that's the right amount of slump or not. Uh some people some people said it was SSD condition when it didn't slump at all. That obviously is wrong.
SPEAKER_02Yes. I think we had a podcast episode about something. Now it's jogging my memory. I think we've had a previous podcast episode about this, perhaps. No, I'm just remembering maybe SSDS or whatever. SD SSD.
SPEAKER_00Or maybe you're thinking of the MSDS.
SPEAKER_02No, I'm not no, I was thinking of I remember someone describing the sand castle.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. We you know what we might have done this very episode.
SPEAKER_02We might have, but I apparently don't pay attention because I still did not get to the correct one. So what are some of what are the other or the most common-ish findings?
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm surprised you didn't guess this one right off the bat because temperature is always an issue, right?
SPEAKER_02That's normally my go-to for these. Darn it, what I'm slacking today. Yikes, go ahead though.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the the temperature of the contents of the pynometer, so that would be you know, the material in the water, uh, were not adjusted. So you have to adjust. Well, they weren't determined. I guess that was the one more common one is that they didn't even check to see that the temperature was what the temperature was before determining the result. Um, so they do have to do that, and then uh once it's at temperature, then they can take the measurement.
SPEAKER_02Um, that totally makes sense that there has to be a certain temperature for it to actually matter because like the volume of water changes at different temperatures. So, of course, other things. All right. That's right. That makes sense.
SPEAKER_00That's right. I see, I know you got it.
SPEAKER_02I know some things, but I can't. I'm so bummed that I didn't get the temperature because like in the previous episodes, if you've been a faithful listener, you know I always go to temperature is my go-to one. I'm so ashamed of myself for not getting that.
SPEAKER_00That's okay. I I know, I know you'll get it next time. Uh so here's another issue, and I mentioned that I thought you would have latched onto this, but I may have put you to sleep with the description of the test method. Uh, before you put the material in the flask, you also have to put some water in there. Uh so it's a it's a flask partially filled with water that you tear on the balance. Yeah, I was trying to give you a hint there that's something that could have gone wrong because that sounds unusual, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, I as you were saying it, I had a flag of that's important and then forgot all of the flags that I had put up in my head. So I uh, but yeah, that does seem important and like an easy step to forget if you're not if you're not used to running that test, I would assume.
SPEAKER_00That yeah, it it is a common one to forget. And the reason why you do that is to make sure you preserve that moisture condition while you're weighing it, because it does take a little bit of time when you're trying to get it in this tiny. So this volumetric flask is a long neck, skinny neck flask. And so it does take a little while to get 500 plus or minus 10 grams into that. Um, so you want to make sure that you don't have it dry out while you're trying to transfer all that material over. One other thing, I I skipped over this one. So we were talking about the slump and and the tamping part. Uh sometimes this was a more specific issue that happens is that sometimes people will fill the cone up and they'll strike it off and then they'll tamp it, but it doesn't say to do that. You just it should probably be a little overflowed, really, um, to get enough material in there. Uh so that was that was another related issue. Uh, I did mention the 500 plus or minus 10 grams, so that is an issue. Sometimes they do not put 500 plus or minus 10 grams in there, they'll put just some random amount of material in there that's not even close to 500 plus or minus 10. Like, there's like when I when I was reading the the common findings, it's clear that they didn't know that it was supposed to be 500 grams in those cases.
SPEAKER_02So, for a perspective for me, because I how much is 500 grams of fine aggregate act like roundabouts, like if we're doing comparing it to another object that I can compare in size of like what we're talking about here, ish.
SPEAKER_00Maybe like your fist.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. So it's smaller than I thought. Yeah, in my head, it was bigger.
SPEAKER_00It's not huge, yeah. 500 grams isn't huge. Um I think that's probably about right.
SPEAKER_02I it might be a little like the size of a tennis ball, baseball fist hand, like it would fit in the palm of your hand.
SPEAKER_00It would fit in your hand, yeah. But it would be about that size. Okay, maybe like it's really not like a tennis ball, maybe like a tennis ball.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I just was trying to like visualize it because for some reason in my head I was thinking it was much bigger. Not 500 grams, but I was just picturing this whole test. And when you said 500 grams, I'm like, well, that's not that much. And so I was just trying to get an image in my head of what you're talking about as we move on. That was a good one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, now I'm thinking if that's the right ball to compare it to the bigger. I mean, I think that's probably the closest one though.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, and sometimes what happens in this test is though there will be instead of putting the 500 um plus or minus 10 grams of material that's slumped, they'll have they'll take a companion specimen that is you know the same uh SSD condition and they'll they'll or or sorry, they will, they will they will take it and they will dry it out. So so like you can you can either take that sample or that specimen that you put into the flask and then take it through out the test, dry it out at the end and determine your mass, or you can take a companion specimen from that point, pop it in the oven, figure out what your moisture content is, and and or sorry, figure out what your um your dry mass is of that specimen for your calculations. Uh so if you're gonna do a companion specimen, it has to be within uh 0.2 grams of whatever went in. So that 500, let's say we're right on the nose with 500 grams, you'd have it would have to be 500 plus or minus 0.2 grams for your companion specimen if you're gonna use a companion specimen. The last one I'm gonna mention is that the pyctnometer containing the specimen water was not agitated for a sufficient period of time to eliminate all air bubbles. It gets confusing. So there's a soil test that's very similar, and it uses a pyctnometer that's smaller than this one. And on that one, you apply a vacuum. And on this one, you just kind of agitate it. You like twist your wrist and agitate it and tumble it and try to get all the air bubbles out that way. So it's kind of a manual process. And if somebody just goes too fast, and then I don't know that I've ever been in a laboratory where they've I've written this up when I was an assessor, because usually they try to overdo it when the assessor is present. Yeah, and then you just have to say, okay, we have to move on. I like let's let's get on to the next one. But there were quite a few findings that it wasn't agitated enough to get all the air bubbles out. So I'm guessing that the assessor must have given it a shake and a bunch of air bubbles came out. They determined that. Um, but I was kind of surprised to see that finding.
SPEAKER_02Interesting.
SPEAKER_00That's it for that one.
SPEAKER_02All right, so course aggregate specific gravity next.
SPEAKER_00Okay, course aggregate specific gravity is dealing with bigger aggregates. Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, is it the same thing but bigger, or do you not do this? You don't do the slump thing?
SPEAKER_00No, you don't do the slump thing. It's it's a little it's a little different. You use a basket, you hang a basket underwater. It's like a imagine like a um a mesh basket.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Uh that you put the SSD condition aggregate in and you weigh it underwater.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00You're not underwater. Okay, well, you're looking very puzzled.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna say first, I wasn't thinking the technician was underwater for that. You need your scuba license to get that. No, I might I was so there when you said there's a basket underwater, I was thinking under running water, but you mean in like a tank of water or a vessel of water that there is a basket.
SPEAKER_03That's right.
SPEAKER_02Fully fully submerged underwater.
SPEAKER_00Fully submerged basket. That you know, it's a funny choice of words that you use there. That may be a uh a little hint towards what might have gone wrong.
SPEAKER_02Okay, but in theory, it's a fully submerged basket, and then the sample is fully submerged underneath that, and then you weigh it fully submerged.
SPEAKER_00Uh, let's run that back again. Say this, say this again.
SPEAKER_02Everything is fully submerged.
SPEAKER_00Everything is fully submerged.
SPEAKER_02Sample the basket, and then you weigh it, I'm guessing, with like a hangy weigh or thing and not a weigh or like a balance. Yep.
SPEAKER_03That's right.
SPEAKER_02And it's not obviously like uh another thing. Okay. How big of a container do you put the basket like that it's submerged in? Is it like a fish tank?
SPEAKER_00It's pretty big. So it it would be I mean, it's a big imagine a big fish tank. Imagine like a big tub that is a 50. Imagine a 55 gallon drum that's cut in half.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Something about that size.
SPEAKER_02Okay. All right. Continue on. If you're I was totally just trying to picture it and I derailed what you were gonna say, so I apologize.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I I want you to imagine. So you've got this aggregate, and in the aggregate, the amount that you've got is probably it's it's quite a bit larger than the other one. Uh uh, imagine a big can of tomatoes or oh, like the big can of tomatoes, big one.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Or or like a gallon of milk, like something about maybe a little bit bigger than that.
SPEAKER_02So it's so big of tomato cans do you have if you were comparing a gallon of milk to a can of tomatoes.
SPEAKER_00Maybe a can of tomatoes wasn't a good comparison.
SPEAKER_02Because I've seen big cans of tomato, but not like maybe not that big. I would not say a gallon of milk would be equivalent.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's well, uh, a gallon of milk would be quite bigger than that. But I'm thinking of a larger can of tomatoes than you're thinking about.
SPEAKER_02Like the whole tomatoes, the whole tomatoes, yeah. The Costco bulk like a big Sam's Club size, yeah, not sponsored content, but just saying for the bulk size of tomatoes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Maybe let's forget the can of tomatoes. I think that was a bad, that was a bad comparison. We'll go with a gallon of milk. That is more relatable. Uh okay. And probably more realistic. I don't in in my in my head, there's a really large can of tomatoes somewhere that someone is. I was and I don't know why.
SPEAKER_01I love this so much. Okay. Yeah, okay. So we'll just go with the milk then.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, let's do that.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So so we've got we we've soaked aggregate, some coarse aggregate in in water for 24 hours. Uh, we've removed it from water, we've put it in a towel, and we've dried the surface of the aggregate, which is not imagine all of the the pieces of aggregate, imagine like a half-inch chunk.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um and the a common way to do that is to kind of roll it around and um, or you like wrap it up and like push it around to get the surface moisture off, and then you weigh it and then you um put it into the basket.
SPEAKER_02Um with that process, are you concerned about getting the fine particles that are like do we care about any of the fine particles for this test? Are we just trying to get the same thing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so so you're gonna lose some of those in that towel, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So what you want to do is you want to determine that mass after you get the SSD condition. So you transfer it from the towel to the basket and weigh it. And then you put the basket under water. Water. And weigh it. So it so it would already have whatever would have fallen out would have already gotcha.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So if I weighed it before it went in the towel, I could have the masses.
SPEAKER_02Okay. I thought for a hot second you were going. I thought you were going to say that people have to like tear weight the towel before and after. And I was like, that seems like a lot. So I was glad you didn't say that. But in my head, that's where I thought you were gonna go that they had to weigh the towel afterwards, and I was like, I don't like that. I don't like that as a procedure, but so I'm glad it's not.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that would be very difficult. So now we've put the specimen in the water, and it's in the container, the little basket. You it's hanging from underneath the balance. So imagine there's a little hook under the balance. Yeah, okay, that goes down, connects to the handle of the basket, and you've got the whole thing submerged, and you give it a little shake with your wrist to get any like entrapped air.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00That's in either in between the aggregates or in the mesh of the basket. Okay. So you get that all shaken out, and then you let it stabilize, and you take your measurement, and then uh then you take it out of the tank and you dry it in the oven at 110 C, 230 F, and uh determine your mass, your dry mass, and then you perform your calculations.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so I'm guessing one of the common non conformities for. For this, for that process, is and I'm not talking about the equipment because we already did that. Because I was gonna say something with the balances. So we're not doing that. We already covered that. I'm gonna say they're not getting the air bubbles out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's right. So that is one of them. The container was not shaken to eliminate air bubbles.
SPEAKER_02All right. Thank you. Uh my next one something with the oven temperature or time that it's dried.
SPEAKER_00Um, no, that was not common. I mean, the oven it it comes up. It comes up. Um I'm not gonna say it's not a finding.
SPEAKER_02But not common enough to make your list.
SPEAKER_00Not common enough to make this list. No.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Let's talk about the real ones then. Once I got that wrong. I'll I'll give I'll throw in the towel. I got one wrong. You can share the rest of the real ones.
SPEAKER_00Are you sure you want to do that? Because there's there's some little hanging here.
SPEAKER_02Okay. All right. So another one that's not the oven. It would be that the not fully submerged. Everything is not fully submerged.
SPEAKER_00Not fully submerged. Yes. We talked about submerging the container.
SPEAKER_02I think I've said fully submerged so many times. I almost forgot about it.
SPEAKER_00A couple ways that this can happen. Uh, the water bath not being filled to the level uh to allow for complete submergion, submersion. And there's also an overflow outlet on this so that that maintains the constant level. Yeah. Uh so you know, much like the flask, you want to get it to the right level of volumetric flask, the container would have an overflow level. Um, another issue is that so yeah, sometimes it's not big enough. The tank isn't big enough. You're talking about the size of the tank, yeah. It's not big enough to submerge everything. Like I I know I've seen this where people will try to use just a regular uh bucket, you know, like a five-gallon bucket. That's not big enough for this.
SPEAKER_02Well, not if you're putting a giant can of tomatoes in it, of course not.
SPEAKER_00That's true.
SPEAKER_02What else is there?
SPEAKER_00Well, you did mention throwing in the towel.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00So sometimes what people do is they don't have a large enough towel to do this. And I looked at some of the some of the things people have done. So a bunch of rags or uh paper towels. That doesn't nothing says I've never run this test before, like when I go to a lab and see somebody with paper towels trying to run this test.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh that means that they didn't, they didn't, they don't run this. So, and maybe they never have to, but um, it's a good idea to make sure you read over the standards before you have the assessment so that you can do your best. Okay, and it and it just puts the technician in a bad spot.
SPEAKER_02Every time you say they don't run a test or it's because they don't run it often, in my head, I'm like, then why are they getting accredited for it? Is what is happening, the thought process every time that is said on the podcast. And like, then why are they wasting their money and getting the credit for it?
SPEAKER_00That's a very reasonable question that you are asking because that that is a good question. Now, unfortunately, with this test and other tests that are required in certain other standards, they will they there will be a requirement for them to obtain accreditation for ASTMC 1077, which is part of these as the required tests. So that's why somebody is not normally running this, but they have to run it for us so that they can get that. All right, I guess but they have to do it for proficiency samples too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you should be more used to running it. There's really not a big excuse for this one, and it's not overly complicated. Like none of these tests that I went over are very complicated because I was able to describe them almost verbatim in a very short time.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I will say, did you capture my intention during that whole time? No, is the answer. So I did zone out as you were describing to them to me as why I did not do so well. So not and I didn't say they were exciting, I just said they were short. Short, yes, your true story there. They were short. Um, and an assessment is an open book test, so people can read through the standard while the assessor is there. So that also baffles me sometimes when people miss something and I get the pressure, but it's open book. You can reference the standard.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And and you should. Um, when now the other thing that I want to mention is that uh the temperature is another issue.
SPEAKER_02Gosh darn it with that temperature. Uh huh.
SPEAKER_00I thought you were gonna get that. That's what I was trying to lead you down that. I said something with the oven, but this is the oven wasn't the issue, it was the water bath.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So the water bath has to be at temperature. Now, this water bath is a big, you know, as we mentioned, it's a big bath.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And it's not a uh it's generally just sitting on a concrete floor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which is not great for temperature control. So you really have to do some work before you start running this test to make sure you can get that bath at temperature.
SPEAKER_02I am really upset because with the fine aggregate, the you the water in the picknometer was a thing. Why didn't I remember that? Rookie mistake.
SPEAKER_00The good news is you don't run this test every day.
SPEAKER_02I've never run this test, so that is really good news. But I have confidence that given the equipment, a couple hours and the standard, I could figure. No, I would I don't have the confidence that I could figure it out, but a day I could figure it out. A couple hours. Well, let's not uh I don't have any plans to quit my day job to become a technician. I'll just say that.
SPEAKER_00Okay, all right. So the last one I'm gonna mention is I talked about the order that you perform this test, and it kind of helps you preserve the integrity of your test specimen. Uh sometimes people reverse the order of of this and they could lead to loss of aggregate. So um that is one issue that that could happen. So, like if you started with, let's say you start with the unhanging the aggregate underwater, and then you go to the towel and you lose some aggregate in the towel. Or it, I mean, it's kind of a rough process of drying, you know, that getting it that the your specimen to SSD condition, you could lose material there pretty easily. So it's just a risk. Not that it would be impossible to do that correctly following reverse order, um, but it would just it adds an element of risk that's not needed.
SPEAKER_02I was going to say, why would you try to do it in reverse order? But you know, things happen.
SPEAKER_00And and yeah, and and people people do things the way they were trained, right? And so if the the person who trained you did it that way and they they had a good system down, never end into any issues, and they showed it to you, then yeah, I mean, I I could see where somebody would say that's fine, let's just keep going with it.
SPEAKER_02That's why reference the standard though.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, reference the standard. That's all that's all the excitement.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I didn't do too bad.
SPEAKER_00I mean you did well for not knowing these tests.
SPEAKER_02I did way better than the previous concrete ones. I'm gonna say that. I feel more confident in this episode than in past episodes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and how is your understanding of the concepts of these tests through our discussion?
SPEAKER_02I have an underst an understanding. I is it a thorough understanding? Absolutely not, but I have an understanding of it, and I've had to make graphics for presentations about specific gravity. So I had the idea just because I've had to do that, but no one's ever actually explained it to me. So I'm I'm good-ish. Again, I'm not quitting my day job to become a technician anytime soon.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, that I'm sure all the technicians out there will be glad to know that their jobs are secure. Kim is not going to be coming into the laboratory to take your job. Uh so so thanks uh for for having me go through these. It it's uh it did take me a while. And this is very, I will also say this is a very unscientific poll uh that I've conducted when pulling all of this data. So there's tons of data on this, and I was grabbing there, some of it is grouped, but some of it is not, because the the final, the whatever everyone did wrong part is different so many times, like so many variations. So those don't get added to the total when they they count up. But I I kind of scroll through and see, like, okay, this one came up a lot, or do keyword searches and then verify it. So the these are the most common, but I if you asked me to um to bet my life on these being the absolute top five or six, I would not do it.
SPEAKER_02Good to know. I like your covering your faces there. Um I we will I will say we will have a companion document that is in the show notes, link to the show notes, and on the website, astroresource.org, that will have a list um of what we talked about uh in this episode. If you weren't taking copious notes about what the common nonconformities were, but it might be something useful to have as a job aid, perhaps around the water bath.
SPEAKER_00As one one often does at a laboratory, hang around the water bath. Again, no risk of Kim taking your job in the lab.
SPEAKER_02Shocking. Oh goodness. Well, I think this has been a great episode, and uh, we'll have another common non common findings episode in the later in this season, for sure. So definitely stay tuned for those. And I did want to put a plug in that at the time of the airing of this, uh the 2024 uh astral resource technical exchange is just around the corner, and it that is coming up on March 18th through the 21st, 2024, in Boston, Massachusetts. So registration is open and we would love to see you there. You can hang out with Brian and uh, you know, tell him how to talk about this.
SPEAKER_00And talk about this. Let's talk about this. Hang out by the water bath. Maybe we'll set up a water bath there so we can talk about common findings.
SPEAKER_02Why not? Why not do that? As long as it's not the actual your hotel bath, then I think it's yeah, yeah, that won't be happening. That seems like that's not a great idea. But again, you can find information on the 2024 Ashto Resource Technical Exchange again, March 18th through the 21st in Boston, Massachusetts. And you can find more information at ashtoresource.org/slash events. Thanks for listening to Ashto Resource QA. If you'd like to be a guest or just submit a question, send us an email at podcast at ashtoresource.org. Or call Brian at 240-436-4820. For other news and related content, check out Ashtoe Resources social media accounts or go to ashtoresource.org.