This has been an exciting and crazy week! This week I took off Monday and Tuesday and was able to explore the Pittsburgh area with my boyfriend while he was in town. We went to "the Big Butler Fair", a large county fair and carnival where the band Lonestar and country singer Casey James were playing. Even though it was incredibly hot it was a fun experience and a good concert. I also had the chance to explore the inner city, walk around in the downtown and strip district areas. It was a blast to be in the city and see how things differed from my home city of Philadelphia. My favorite part of Pittsburgh was defiantly the view from a top of Mount Washington. There is defiantly not a view like that back in Philadelphia. It was a great relaxing time but back at RJ Lee the work was piling up.
I got back to RJ Lee Group on Wednesday refreshed and ready to work. There were a ton of concrete samples that are in need of prep and need to be prepped fast. With several different projects going on there has defiantly not been a boring moment this week. Since there are a couple of different projects there has been a few different ways that the samples need to be prepped for different types of analysis. This week so far we have been preparing samples for the optical, air void, and SEM analysis. The samples we prep for these analyses are thin sections, lapped sections, and polished sections. The process starts by cutting the samples, whether they be drill cores or little chucks of concrete, they are all cut on a diamond saw to a specification set by the customer and the analyser. After the samples are cut they are lap and polished down to a certain size grit. If they are being made into a lap section the process is a simple as that. If they are being made into a polished section then they have to be taken through all the of the diamond grits too in order to insure a mirror like finish on the concrete. If the samples are being made into a thin section then they get glued onto a microscope slide, and get ground down till the sample is about 15-20 microns. This makes it so the sample can be seen through with a petrographic microscope.
There are some samples needed to be epoxied to preserve the salts and imperfections of the concrete. For these samples we are not allowed to prep them with water instead they must be prep with isopar (a refined type of kerosene) and oil based diamond paste. Other samples we have been prepping did not have such restrictions. It is important to pay attention to the instructions and make sure that everything is prepare up to the standards of RJ Lee. I always want to try my best and make sure I am working my hardest. I really work hard to the point where my supervisor tells me to take breaks. These moment make me laugh because I do forget to relax sometimes. I guess my mind in just still in school mode where I always have some sort of classwork, studying or working at one of my campus jobs. So I am just used to working as hard as I can as quickly as I can to get things done and get them done to the best of my abilities. I just hope that one day my hard work will pay off.
I got back to RJ Lee Group on Wednesday refreshed and ready to work. There were a ton of concrete samples that are in need of prep and need to be prepped fast. With several different projects going on there has defiantly not been a boring moment this week. Since there are a couple of different projects there has been a few different ways that the samples need to be prepped for different types of analysis. This week so far we have been preparing samples for the optical, air void, and SEM analysis. The samples we prep for these analyses are thin sections, lapped sections, and polished sections. The process starts by cutting the samples, whether they be drill cores or little chucks of concrete, they are all cut on a diamond saw to a specification set by the customer and the analyser. After the samples are cut they are lap and polished down to a certain size grit. If they are being made into a lap section the process is a simple as that. If they are being made into a polished section then they have to be taken through all the of the diamond grits too in order to insure a mirror like finish on the concrete. If the samples are being made into a thin section then they get glued onto a microscope slide, and get ground down till the sample is about 15-20 microns. This makes it so the sample can be seen through with a petrographic microscope.
There are some samples needed to be epoxied to preserve the salts and imperfections of the concrete. For these samples we are not allowed to prep them with water instead they must be prep with isopar (a refined type of kerosene) and oil based diamond paste. Other samples we have been prepping did not have such restrictions. It is important to pay attention to the instructions and make sure that everything is prepare up to the standards of RJ Lee. I always want to try my best and make sure I am working my hardest. I really work hard to the point where my supervisor tells me to take breaks. These moment make me laugh because I do forget to relax sometimes. I guess my mind in just still in school mode where I always have some sort of classwork, studying or working at one of my campus jobs. So I am just used to working as hard as I can as quickly as I can to get things done and get them done to the best of my abilities. I just hope that one day my hard work will pay off.
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