fairfolio
Saved Projects

Does the Amount of Water in Concrete Affect Its Strength?

CSEF · 2007 Applied Mechanics & Structures

Megan E. Cunningham · Nazareth School, San Diego, San Diego County

Overview

Objectives/Goals My project was to determine if different amounts of water would affect the strength of concrete. I believe that there is an optimum amount of water that will make a concrete mix it's strongest. Methods/Materials In my project, I used water, cement, sand, two molds, a tamper, and a hydraulic jack. I changed the amount of water but kept the amount of sand and cement the same in each of the 12 concrete mixes that I made. To test the compressive strength, I used a hydraulic jack and a steel frame. Results The range of water cement ratio between 0.40 and 0.45 has shown to produce the strongest concrete. Conclusions/Discussion Looking at all the data that I have collected and recorded into my data log, my hypothesis was supported. The concrete samples that had a lot of water or a small amount of water, were weaker. This information is helpful because it tells us which range of water cement ratios is going to produce the strongest concrete.

Summary statement

In my project, I tested to see if different amounts of water affected the strength of concrete.

Help received

My mother took pictures and also helped me to put my display board together. My father was my testing supervisor. Steve Campbell of Christian Wheeler Engineering loaned me the two molds and the tamper that I used. Marathon Construction Corporation loaned me the hydraulic jack.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2007 Applied Mechanics & Structures · Entry J0210

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google