Ojt Journal.docx 2k5436

Journal/Progress Report July 1, 2016 We arrived at Thammasat University by 2 pm and we were welcomed by Ms. Pim Cha Cha, one of the s here in Faculty of Engineering. She accompanied us to the VKP Mansion where we would stay for the whole month. After settling down our things, we came back to the university and Dr. Montalee gave us a tour of the Faculty of Engineering and Thammasat University. We met our professor, Mr. Kasemchart Srivalai and he accompanied us to the laboratories that he handles. He showed us the Laboratory for Bitumenous Materials, Soil Laboratory and Research Facility for Soil. After the tour she treated us to a dinner in Simply Delicious together with our professors/advisers and other students of Thammasat. July 3, 2016 Sir Ryan decided to go to Chatujak Market to buy souvenirs so we accompanied him to the market. July 4, 2016 Our professor introduced us to Modified Cam Clay and gave us references to explore. He told us that knowledge about Modified Cam Clay would help us predict parameters of soil without conducting a laboratory test that would take time and capital to conduct. July 5, 2016 We went to Ayutthaya which is the former capital of Thailand. Tungkla, a chemical engineer taking up masteral courses at the university accompanied us to Ayutthaya Temples. After the trip, we went to floating market to eat lunch. July 7, 2016 Synyster Karn and Aor, students of professor Kasemchart, demonstrated to us how to setup the specimen in the triaxial test. They prepared the specimen with standard proctor compaction hammer. Then they setup the specimen in the triaxial test and de-aired the tubes and valves before putting in the chamber. They istered water inside until water flows out through the bleed valve. Professor Kasemchart taught us how to run the triaxial apparatus with CLISP software studio. After setting up the software, the specimen was saturated and a B-Check was used to determine its saturation level. July 8, 2016 The porewater pressure transducer did not give any value but since the first test was only for demonstration purposes we proceeded to the consolidation stage. The stopping conditions set cannot be met and there is no way to determine how much

the soil has consolidated since it there is something wrong with the sensors. We run the shearing stage and connected the ram to be able to apply a specific load. The speed of straining entered was small but the apparatus run the rammer at very high speed. Professor decided to call an engineer to fix everything in the equipment since there is no proper communication between software and machine. July 11, 2016 Mr. Teng, engineer of VJ Tech, fixed the apparatus and explained that setting in the software might have been changed that’s why there was no proper communication between the software and the apparatus. He has fixed the problem but the submersible load cell needs to be calibrated since there was a restart of the program. July 13, 2016 We helped our professor calibrate the load cell by applying some loads with a steel block and measuring the error from the difference of the weight of block and the value ed from the load cell. The measured error was roughly around 10%. Then the submersible load cell was connected to the ram while an external load cell was also inside the chamber. After calibration, the error recorded was only around 1% which is already acceptable. We have also drafted our experimentation program since the equipment is already fixed. The program would be constituted by 5 samples tested under different conditions of confining pressure and saturation. July 14, 2016 We dried the soil in the oven so that we could determine its compaction curve. The compaction curve would be useful to determine the optimum moisture content which would be the basis of the moisture content for the specimen. July 15, 2016 The materials that were prepared for the determining the compaction curve are the mould, standard proctor hammer, pan and five moisture cans. Since a standard proctor test would be conducted, we made 3 layers and compact every layer with 25 blows. We started at 3% moisture content and additional 3% every trial. We made five trials at the span of the test. July 16, 2016 We only weighed the moisture cans to determine the moisture content of every trial. The optimum moisture content showed in the graph was only about 5%. This is near the optimum moisture content determined by a group here in Thammasat University that used the same soil for their thesis. July 17, 2016

For this day, we went to The Church of our Lady Mother of God to celebrate the Sunday mass. We met a community of Filipinos who were of Christian Life Program as well. They invited us to lunch and we happily ed them. After lunch, we went to Siam Paragon which is a popular mall in Thailand.

July 18 – July 20, 2016 It was a long holiday in Thailand because they were celebrating the Buddhist Lent. We spent these three days trying to make the specimen for the Tri-axial Apparatus and we failed several trials since the optimum moisture content is still not enough to create a sample that is coherent. We kept on adding moisture content until there are no crumbles the fall out on the specimen. July 21, 2016 The moisture content that was used for the specimen is about 20% to be able to create a good specimen. We mounted the specimen in the Tri-axial Apparatus and wrapped it with a membrane to protect it from infiltration of water when confining pressure is applied. Tri-axial chamber was locked and water was istered inside. We soaked the specimen by applying a 5 kPa pressure at the pore water pressure valve with a confining pressure of 10kPa. July 22, 2016 The specimen was saturated at different stages of confining pressure while maintaining an effective cell pressure of 10 kPa. At the end of the saturation stage, the specimen has tilted and it looked like it expanded a little. Professor Kasemchart checked the Automatic Pressure Controllers using an external pressure gauge. There was a huge error in the pressure exerted by the Cell Pressure which could cause the tilting of the specimen. This signifies that the effective cell pressure was not maintained properly inside the specimen which could cause the tilting. We made a new specimen and repeated the experiment up to the saturation stage. July 23, 2016 Dr. Montalee gave us a tour of the Grand Palace located in Bangkok. Nut accompanied us inside the Palace while giving us a history of place. It is the home of the royal family for several decades. July 24, 2016 Karn who is a student of our professor that helps us in the lab owns a company that deals with bored piling in the East of Thailand. He drove us to one of their sites near Pattaya Beach. He explained to us how they conduct their operations on creating pile foundations for bridge construction. Using a piling rig with an auger at the end,

they bore a hole at a depth of 4 meters then protect it from soil collapse by putting a soil casing. When they reach a depth where the groundwater is located they put bentonite slurry in the hole to protect the soil from water pressure because casing would be hard to drive down the hole because of friction. If the bored hole is 2 meters from the depth requirement, bucket is used instead of auger because it would be hard to bore the soil with an auger. After boring, they put the reinforcement and ister concrete inside the soil. This process would push back the slurry on to the tank and it would be desand to be used again on other holes.

July 26, 2016 After the saturation stage, we performed the consolidation of soil under a confining pressure of 50 kPa. This process would take a long time but since the specimen was not fully saturated, the apparatus continued saturating the specimen for a couple of hours. July 27, 2016 Consolidation stage was finished and we prepared for shearing stage by setting up the submersible load cell. The speed of straining was 1 mm/min. After shearing, the data was exported so that we could plot the graph of deviator stress - axial strain in excel. July 28, 2016 We made a new specimen to determine two set of parameters in isotropic consolidation test. These two parameters are the compression index and swelling index. The parameters would be used in modified cam clay model. We mounted the specimen in the Tri-axial chamber and modified the setting in the Clisp studio software. We soaked the specimen and set the saturation stage to be automated since it would take a long time before the specimen is saturated. July 29, 2016 After the saturation stage, the software showed a B-Check value of 0.8 and our professor decided to continue to consolidation stage since there is only one day left for our internship. The isotropic consolidation would be start with 25 kPa, followed by 50 kPa, 100kpa, 200kpa, and back to 100kpa. In each step, we need to record the change in volume showed in the software to be able plot the points in specific volume – log of the pressure graph. We were only able to reach 200 kpa since it takes a long time to consolidate the specimen. July 30, 2016

We packed our things up since it was our last day in Thailand. We bid farewell to our professors and friends in Thammasat University.