To exercise and to enjoy the outdoors, Daniel is a caddy at his local country club. He is also involved in Boy Scouts and is currently taking acoustic guitar lessons. Because he has "always been fascinated [by] buildings and construction," Daniel would like to pursue a career in architecture or engineering. Daniel's mentor is his junior high school science teacher, who made science "fun and interesting."
Daniel had read that tons of sulfur were discarded each year as a by-product of oil refining. He has also read about cement shortages. He wondered if sulfur could partially replace cement as a construction material.
Daniel made three batches of cement with varying amounts of sulfur. A fourth, control batch contained no sulfur. He made nine bricks from each batch and tested their strength against force, weight, and temperature. In the accelerated stress test, Daniel attached the bricks to a wooden arm and placed them near a rotating piece of metal that repeatedly pounded the bricks. In the shearing test, Daniel clamped the bricks in a vice and added water to a bag hanging from the bricks until the bricks cracked. In the thermal shock test, he quickly moved the bricks from a hot oven to a cold water bath. He then put the same bricks through the shearing test to check for internal weakness. Daniel found that the bricks containing 6% and 10% sulfur fared best in all the tests.
