
The Job
The Purple Line is a light rail line project in suburban Maryland designed to increase connectivity within Maryland’s suburbs of Washington, DC. The project involves extensive utility relocation to facilitate installation of large embankments and the extensive infrastructure required for a double track rail corridor dropped into the middle of an already exceptionally congested/dense corridor.
The Challenge
As part of the project, a large MSE wall needed to be installed over approximately 3000LF of 66″ PCCP water main. In order to avoid any future maintenance problems under the rail alignment, a new line was installed adjacent to the embankment, and the old line needed to be abandoned.
Due to construction sequencing, the embankment was already in place well before the water line relocation was performed.
The Solution
CJGeo worked with the utility relocation contractor to design a grout mix and grouting program that provided sufficient bearing capacity to eliminate concerns about future stability. The ultimate design for the mix was a 100psi cellular grout. Given that the embankment was already in place, the entire 3000LF stretch had to be grouted from just two access points.
CJGeo used a 200CY/hour dry mix batch plant onsite to generate and pump the cellular concrete up to 1500LF to place the material. 2800CY of material were placed over a period of four days onsite with no disruptions to adjacent construction activities.