End of Week 1

Week 1 of the summer research institute has come and gone. At the end of this first week we seem to have a pretty good grasp on the running of the falling head test along with how altering the different parameters effects the resulting k value.  Today we decided to switch things up by adding some marbles into the sand to act like rocks. We started with just a few marbles layered on the sand topped with an additional layer of sand and worked our way up to over 50 marbles. The falling head test was run just as before by placing the smaller tube into the sand and filling it with water and timing how long it takes the water to fall a certain distance. The addition of the marbles took longer for the to fall making our calculated k value smaller as expected.

We also started to look and try to comprehend the Matlab code that we will actually be using to produce and image with our data. The code is much different than what we were using before to practice and seems to be a little confusing at the moment, but I am confident that we will be able to get in figured out in the next five weeks.

Next week we will begin our exploration into the constant head test, starting with the construction of the required apparatus. We can't fully start the exploration until we obtain a new glass cylinder. The glass cylinder that was being used became the first casualty of our research, shattering while Matt attempted to remove the sand and marbles. Next week we will probably head over to Duck Creek to do some preliminary research into the sand/soil composition, seeing if the sand/soil will even allow us to take measurements and maybe get some tests done to see what potential problems we might come across. 

Column with marbles (picture added by Susa)