Lab Report Analysis

A lab report is an important work for the scientist, researcher, or students that take any scientific or engineering courses. A good lab report is made of eight parts, title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, and acknowledgments. The result of a good lab report can prove a researcher’s value and strength. Therefore, a good lab report presents the research that a researcher is working on, often being one of the reasons they succeed. As this paper will analyze two lab reports to see their quality.

In this analysis, the main is the analysis and explain the key term and the purpose of the two-lab report. It will begin with the title and the acknowledgments; the two reports will be analysis in separately, and compared at the end.

The keyword explanation of two lab reports:

  • Fatigue performance: Fatigue performance is a serious concern for mechanical components subject to cyclical stresses, particularly where safety is paramount.
  • Four-point bending: 4-point bending provides four points of contact; two supports and two points where loading is applied.
  • Compressive modulus: The ratio of mechanical stress to strain in an elastic material when that material is being compressed.
  • Tensile modulus: A measure of the stiffness of an elastic material and is a quantity used to characterize materials.
  • Azo Dyes: Azo dyes are organic compounds bearing the functional group R−N=N−R.
  • HP-β-CD: HP-β-CD is a cyclic oligosaccharide containing seven D- (+)-glucopyranose units.
  • Water-soluble: capable of dissolving in water.
  • Oil-soluble: can only be dissolved in oil.

The first lab report

The first lab is written by Song Tao Lv, etc., the title of this lab report “Investigation of the fatigue modulus decay in cement stabilized base material by considering the difference between compressive and tensile modulus” has given list the purpose of the lab report. Which is to investigate the difference between the compressive and tensile modulus of cement that

stabilized the base materials in architecture. This title has helped the reader save time to understand the mean point of the lab report.

Then is the abstract of this lab report. The abstract summarizes all the detail and information in the report. It contains what causes the fatigue performance, which is because experiences tensile and compressive stresses simultaneously in the actual pavement structures. And then it mentions the purpose of this report is, to analyze the fatigue performance of cement-stabilized based on the modulus decay considering the difference between compressive and tensile modulus. Also, the abstract contains the methods, results, discussion, and conclusion.

The introduction of this lab report first introduces to the reader that, semi-rigid base asphalt pavement is a durable, high-grade pavement structure, and semi-rigid base materials that it often used are cement stabilized gravel. This type of material has the advantage of high strength, high stiffness, and high frost resistance, which can enable longer fatigue life of the entire pavement. However, the study shows that in the actual pavement, the tensile and compressive stresses in cement-stabilized gravel subgrade exist simultaneously, and the existing test methods are seldom considered the effect that compressive stresses do on the road, which can cause design flaws, and decrease the longer fatigue life of the pavement.

During the materials and methods part, the method that the author used to solve the problem is the four-point bending test. The reason the author chooses this method is that four-point bending has a similar force state, which uses this method to simulate the actual force state of the pavement. The material used in this lab report is PSB 32.5R Cement from China Hunan Longhui Southern Cement Co. The reason chooses this is that its performance indicators of raw materials meet the technical standards.

The result of the four-point bending test is the bending tensile strength value is 1.309MPa and the maximum load is 9.82KN.

In the discussion part, the authors discussed the initial value critical value, and the critical

fatigue damage value of tension and a compressive modulus. During the discussion, the compressive modulus critical value is greater than tension, the critical value is greater than tension and the damage value of compression modulus is also less than tension.

At the conclusion of this lab report, the author proves that using compression modulus to replace tensile modulus to calculate the mechanical response of cement-stabilized gravel subgrade is unreasonable because the gap between the two sides is large. And during the discussion, the average compression is greater than tension, which improving the tensile properties of cement-stabilized aggregates can improve their fatigue resistance.

The acknowledgment of this lab report is the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51578081, 51608058), The Ministry of Transport Construction Projects of Science and Technology (2015318825120), The projects of Transportation Science and Technology of Hunan (201701), Key Projects of Hunan Province Technological Innovation Project in Industry (2016GK2096). The document it references is about 54.

The second lab report

The title of this lab report is “Efficient Decolorization of Water and Oil-Soluble Azo Dyes by Enterococcus avium Treated with HP-β-CD”. The title includes the purpose of the lab report which is using the Enterococcus avium that is treated with the HP-β-CD to test the decolorization of the Water-soluble and oil-soluble azo dyes.

Introduction part. This report first introduces Azo Dye is represents “a major group of dyes causing environmental concern because of their color, bio-recalcitrance, and potential toxicity to animals and humans” (Pierce et al., 2003; Forgacs et al., 2004). The color made by Azo Dye could be toxic to animals and humans, it can cause carcinogenic, mutagenic, or teratogenic to the creature including humans. Then the purpose of this lab is to develop the technology of decolorization and degradation of azo dyes.

The materials and methods. The materials used in this lab report are Amaranth Red and Sudan Red that was supplied by Aladdin chemical, China, LB medium containing azo dyes, and Activated sludge from Wastewater treatment at a plant in Shandong province, eastern China. The method of this lab report is 16S rDNA sequencing, the decolorization of amaranth by growing cells, DR (%) = Initial absorbance – Observed absorbance / Initial absorbance X 100(1), decolorization of Sudan I by dtrain ts17, and DR (%) = Initial peak area – Monitored peak area / Initial peak area X 100(2).

The result and discussion. The result of the test of decolorization bacteria is that experimental strain 17 has a close relationship with enterococcus spp and has 99 percent highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to the enterococcus orientalis. Then Amaranth decolorization, the result is no decolorization ability was found for strain ts17 when it is in the situation under oscillation conditions (120 rpm) so it means static conditions are necessary for the decolorization of ts17, also when the amount of the Azo Dyes color increases the time for decolonization will increase. Effect of pH value, the best pH value for the decolonization of amaranth red azo dye by ts17 strain is 7.0. Effect of NaCl concentration, when the concentration of NaCl is above 5 the speech ts17have for decolonization was increased, however when the concentration of NaCl is about 7, the speed drop and occurrence of inhibitory effects. The role of heavy metal ions, using Fe3+ can significantly increase the decolorization rate of the lag phase as reflected by the bacterial growth curve. Then using Mg2+ the decolorization rate increased from 18.36% to 100% between 4 and 6 hours.

At the conclusion of this lab report, the enterococcus oryzae can effectively decolorize monoazo water-soluble Amaranth Red and monoazo oil-soluble Sudan Red I treated with HP-β-CD.

The acknowledgment of this lab report is the Natural Science Foundation of Liao Cheng University (Project No. 318011610). The references of this lab report are about 21.

Comparing the two lab reports, the first lab report is a standard for a report. The first contains all the eight elements it needs and is written according to the elements. However, the second lab report is also a good report that contains most of the elements but is missing the abstract. The reason that the second lab report lost its abstract, is that it is a short report, different than a regular report that needs an abstract, a shorter report will contain less time for reading. So, the author chooses to write the report without an abstract.

In conclusion, after analyzing and annotating the two-lab report, the structure of the report is important, the order of the structure list the different part of the report, so the report won’t be missy. Therefore, a structure for a lab report is important.

 

                                  Source Citation

  • Song, P., Feng, W., Shi, H., Zhao, J., Liu, R., & Xu, W. (2019, April 30). Efficient Decolorization of Water and Oil-Soluble Azo Dyes by Enterococcus avium Treated with HP-[beta]-CD. Shibboleth authentication request. Retrieved March 5, 2023, from https://go-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm¤tPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA586359570&docType=Report&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=ZONE-MOD1&prodId=AONE&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA586359570&searchId=R1&userGroupName=cuny_ccny&inPS=true
  • Lv, S., Yuan, J., Liu, C., Wang, J., Li, J., & Zheng, J. (2019, July 9). Investigation of the fatigue modulus decay in cement stabilized base material by considering the difference between compressive and tensile modulus. Shibboleth authentication request. Retrieved March 5, 2023, from https://www-sciencedirect-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/science/article/pii/S0950061819316666#s0015.

Self-Reflection

During the process of analysis and annotation, first I find two lab reports from the CCNY Library Database, which are “Investigation of the fatigue modulus decay in cement stabilized base material by considering the difference between compressive and tensile modulus”, and “Efficient Decolorization of Water and Oil-Soluble Azo Dyes by Enterococcus avium Treated with HP-β-CD”. Then is the process of checking their conformity to the standards of the eight elements, title, abstract, introduction, materials, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion.

However, the second lab report that I found did not have an abstract, and I still choose this lab report, is because I can contrast the second lab report with the first. During the writing part, most of the work I have is arguments but without a citation to prove the arguments, and the majority part of my work is missing an explanation. For example, in the analysis for the first lab report, I mention the method used for the lab, the four-point bending, but I did not deeply tell the reader what a four-point bending, is and why it is important that the author of the lab report use this method to test out the result.

The challenge I have faced during the writing process is explaining the terminology. I haven’t learned or heard of the terminology of chemistry and engineering, and it is difficult for me to understand and explain those terms.