Burn
Burn turns up in 3 fields: fiber optics, concrete, asphalt. Here is what it means to the people in each one.
Burn in fiber optics
Splicer slang for making fusion splices, from the electric arc that welds the glass.
Everyday splicing talk for running fibers through the fusion splicer, as in burning fibers, burning a tray or how many did you burn this shift. Splice productivity is counted in fibers burned per day, and a good splicer on a clean closure of loose-tube cable can burn a couple of hundred fibers in a shift, and a ribbon crew far more. The word also covers fusing splice-on connectors and pigtails.
"We burned 432 in the big ribbon closure this shift, should finish the last two tubes and shoot it tomorrow."
Burn in concrete
To steel-trowel a slab again and again at high blade pitch until it turns hard, dark and glossy.
Finisher slang for the final machine passes of a hard-trowel finish, where the blades are tilted steeply and run until the surface takes on a dense, burnished shine. Burned slabs resist wear and suit warehouses, garages and shops where the floor stays exposed. It only works on concrete without entrained air, and burning too late or too hard leaves dark burn marks.
"Burn that slab before you go home, the GC wants it slick for the forklift traffic Monday."
Burn in asphalt
Lab shorthand for an ignition oven test, or the binder content result that comes out of it.
A single run of the ignition oven to find binder content, and by extension the number itself, as in the burn came in at 5.3. A QC tech splits a sample from the truck, burns it, then shakes the clean aggregate through the sieves. Plant operators adjust binder feed off the trend of burns across the day rather than chasing one result.
"Morning burn was 5.1, afternoon burn 5.6, somebody's fiddling with the oil pump at the plant."