By Brian Johnson, Program Supervisor (AAP)

So you opened up your email notification to see that the latest proficiency sample ratings were just posted, you log into AMRLs website to view your ratings (see Figure 1 for a typical rating), and you see ratings of **, -5, -3, 5, 4. You think to yourself, "I know that 4 and 5 are good, but what about the negative numbers? Those are below 3, so they must be bad... and what are the stars for?..." Read more

By Amanda McCrum, Laboratory Assessor

Chemists call it H2O, or dihydrogen monoxide if they want to impress their friends. But to the layperson, it's simply water. What do we know about water? Well, it is wet, it makes up about 60-70% of our body mass, it falls from the sky, and it covers approximately 70% of the Earth. Read more

By Tracy Barnhart, Quality and Information Manager

Did you know that AMRL offers on-site assessments and AASHTO offers accreditation for International Standard ISO/IEC 17025? You may have at least heard of this standard by now, but maybe you don't know much about it. The title of the standard is "General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories." Read more

By Robert Lutz, AMRL Manager

"Absolute certainty is a privilege of uneducated minds and fanatics. It is for scientific folk an unattainable ideal." Cassius J. Keyser, 1862 - 1947 I promised in the inaugural article of Metrology Musings that I'd discuss metrology topics such as calibration, traceability, and measurement uncertainty. Let's use these terms to compare and contrast the two most common, and most commonly misunderstood, concepts: calibration and standardization. These terms are prevalent in many testing standards. Read more

By Mike Adkins, Laboratory Assessor
Kim Swanson, Administrative Assistant (LAP)

6:15 A.M.
RING! RING! RING! - The hotel wake-up call abruptly starts my morning routine. In a familiar hotel room, but unfamiliar city, I groggily roll out of bed. So starts another day as an AMRL Laboratory Assessor on the road. I have to remind myself where I am - I'm just outside of Chicago today. Read more

By Maria Knake, Program Manager for Training and Technical Services

Thanks to new technology, many of our materials testing procedures are becoming more automated. It only makes sense that advancements in computing, measurement science, and electronics have had a positive effect on laboratory testing. Testing machines with a "set it and forget it" operation allow us to perform more testing with less staff in a shorter amount of time. Read more

By Geremy Jablonski, Quality Analyst

A Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) is a non-destructive testing device used to measure pavement deflections in response to a high-amplitude dynamic load. The devices are used to simulate the load applied by truck traffic. Vertical deformation of the pavement, caused by a controlled load, is measured using deflection sensors. This information is used to determine the expected life of the pavement, overlay thickness requirements, and load capacity. Read more