SOE Leak Grouting
The Job
This SOE leak grouting project is located in Alexandria, Virginia. It is part of the RiverRenew project, which is a large CSO tunnel and drop shaft project. This location is immediately adjacent to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, and the Potomac River.
The Challenge
At a drop shaft location, the contract installed two parallel slurry walls between an existing combined sewer box culvert and a drop shaft to the new tunnel. During excavation of the pit, two high volume leaks, each around 125GPM opened up below the existing conduit.
The customer installed road plates to stabilize the area, and pumped flowable fill behind the road plates. This provided short term stability to the area, but did not address the high velocity flow of water through an unanticipated open graded sand seam that was causing the leaks.
The Solution
CJGeo mobilized a grouting crew capable of performing both high volume geotechnical polyurethane grouting and acrylic permeation grouting at the same time for this SOE leak grouting work. The first step was to install CJGrout 35NHV61 to fill voids which had washed out immediately behind the road plates.
After grouting the bulk voids and slowing the velocity of the leaks, CJGeo installed acrylic grout up to 20 feet behind the slurry wall face. The only way to reliably stop water flow through sands is to bind them together with a very low viscosity grout. The acrylic grout installed on this project has a viscosity less than 10 centipoise. This allows it to uniformly permeate the sands, react into a cooked egg white consistency, and make the treated sands impermeable.
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HDPE Annular Grouting
The Job
This HDPE annular grouting project is located in Portsmouth, Virginia. The project owner is the Hampton Roads Sanitation District, which provides sanitary transmission and treatment for coastal Virginia.
The Challenge
CJGeo was originally part of this project to perform abandonment grouting of around 1000 linear feet of 24″ gravity sewer. During construction, a 1600 linear feet of 36″ gravity sewer in the project area was inspected. The inspection revealed multiple defects needing repair. The design and construction team identified slip lining as the most appropriate repair.
Slip lining generally requires annular grouting between the new carrier pipe and the original pipe. In this case, fused 24″ solid wall HDPE was the slip lining material of choice. This left an approximately 6″ annulus to be fill in order to ensure long term stability of the new pipe and the surrounding ground.
The Solution
CJGeo proposed using 30lb/cuft CJFill-Ultra Lightweight cellular concrete for the annular grout. Cellular grout is the ideal material for HDPE annular grouting because the placement pressures are incredibly low. This is because cellular grout is primarily air, because of its high preformed foam content. Preformed foam on this project came from Aerix Industries.
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48 Inch RCP Joint Repair
The Job
This 48 inch RCP joint repair project is located in Raleigh, North Carolina. The pipe is located at a commercial facility. The slope covering the pipe experienced a slope failure. Upon inspection, six joints were showing signs of soil infiltration and water exfiltration.
The Challenge
The primary challenge for the general contractor on this project was minimizing cost and time. It would have been expensive and disruptive to excavate the pipe. Cover depths were up to 15 feet, and there was a road that would be impacted by excavation, as well.
The exfiltration from the leaking joints was washing away bedding material and adjacent backfill. This caused significant amounts of erosion, and destabilized the slope soils by completely saturating them.
Piping outside of reinforced concrete pipe is an ideal candidate for polyurethane grouting.
The Solution
CJGeo worked with the general contractor and owner’s civil engineering to design a grouting program to repair the pipe. The general concept for this 48 inch RCP joint repair project was to backgrout the pipe with rigid geotechnical polyurethane grout. CJGrout 35NHV61 was the grout of choice; it can be injected directly into flowing water, provides nearly 10ksf in compressive strength, and migrates into both large and small voids with ease.
A CJGeo polyurethane grouting crew took a single day to perform the repair. The average circumferential void around the pipe was nearly nine inches. Cutoff criteria were:
- grout hole to joint communication
- cross hole communication
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North Carolina Abandonment Grouting
The Job
This North Carolina pipe abandonment project is located in Raleigh, North Carolina. It is part of the Upper Walnut Creek sewer replacement. After installation of a new gravity sewer, more than three miles of 42″ sewer was requiring abandonment grouting. The specification calls for completely filling the pipe with controlled low strength material (flowable fill).
The Challenge
The primary challenge for the general contractor on this project was minimizing cost and time. The owner’s specification calls for an NCDOT-approved flowable fill material. Most flowable fills can only be placed for up to a few hundred feet before requiring another access point. The contractor wanted to minimize the number of placement points to ensure the fastest placement possible.
The Solution
CJGeo designed a grouting program using one of our NCDOT-approved mixes. Using dry batch generation, CJGeo can make up to 200 cubic yards per hour of material, which is enough to fill 562 feet of 42″ pipe per hour.
CJGeo mobilized a dry batch cellular grout plant to the site, and made a total of 5,539 CY of cellular concrete to complete this North Carolina abandonment grouting project over a few weeks. Some of the pipe was completely full of water. Even though cellular grout is significantly lighter than water, it can still displace water out of pipes.
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Virginia Pipe Abandonment
The Job
This Virginia pipe abandonment project is located in Norfolk, Virginia. It is part of the HRSD’s capital improvement program. After installation of a new gravity sewer, 875 linear feet of 24 inch sewer required grout filling for abandonment.
The Challenge
The primary challenge for the general contractor on this project was avoiding installing placement points every 150 feet to use traditional flowable fill. The owner’s specification if using traditional flowable fill requires placement points every 150 feet. The owner allows other controlled low strength materials to be pumped further, as long as uniform material vents at the far end of each placement.
The Solution
CJGeo proposed using 30lb/cuft CJFill-Ultra Lightweight cellular concrete. CJFill-Ultra Lightweight is pumpable thousands of feet per placement. This eliminates the need for most intermediate access points.
CJGeo mobilized a wet batch cellular grout plant to the site, and made 101 CY of cellular concrete grout to complete this Virginia pipe abandonment project in a few hours. The pipe was completely full of water. Even though cellular grout is significantly lighter than water, it can still displace water out of pipes.
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SOE Closure Manchette Grouting
The Job
This SOE closure Manchette grouting project is located in Alexandria, Virginia. It is part of the RiverRenew project, a large CSO project.
The Challenge
As part of this project, a diversion structure and drop shaft were being installed to pull flow off of an existing sewer tunnel. The box tunnel is around 8′ wide. The SOE will facilitate installation of the diversion chamber. Excavation within the SOE called for closing the gap between slurry wall panels. This is to be done under the existing structure with steel lagging.
However, the closure is below ground water table. The “marsh” deposits soils require stabilization prior to excavation. The conceptual design from the owner called for permeation grouting tied into an underlying clay layer. The clay layer is approximately 50′ below existing grade.
The Solution
CJGeo proposed performing the permeation grouting to cut off ground water flow and stabilize the soils for excavation using an acrylic grout. Due to the relatively deep required depth, traditional percussion driven installation tubing wasn’t possible. CJGeo used sonic drilling to install the TAM tubing.
To ensure accurate placement at depth, CJGeo used the TAM grouting method. TAM grouting, or Tube-a-Manchette, uses special grout casing installed by drilling to grout through.
CJGeo performed this SOE closure Manchette grouting work over a period of two weeks.
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Detroit Michigan Annular Space Grouting
The Job
This Detroit Michigan annular space grouting project is located near Van Dyke Avenue & 8 Mile Road. The project owner is Great Lakes Water Authority, and the project is part of the PCI-4 rehabilitation.
The Challenge
As part of the rehabilitation of this large diameter sewer, three different liner systems had to be installed. The longest section of single liner type is approximately 800 linear feet. The concrete sewer’s inner diameter is approximately 17.5 feet. The outer diameter of the liner that the installer subcontracted the annular space grouting to CJGeo on is approximately 16.5 feet.
Based on the theoretical average inside diameter of the existing sewer, the annulus is almost exactly one cubic yard per linear foot.
The Solution
The pipe runs at full charge at least once per day, so there was a high likelihood of accumulated water in the annulus. To displace this water and ensure consistent bearing of the pipe, CJGeo proposed 75lb/cuft CJFill-Under Water. While this density of CJFill cellular grout significantly exceeds the 300psi at 28 day compressive strength requirement, it facilitates displacing solids from the annulus.
To help manage buoyancy, once the first lift was in place, the wet cast density of the cellular concrete on this Detroit Michigan annular space grouting project was reduced to 45lb/cuft CJFill-Standard. Reducing the wet cast density significantly reduces uplift, which allows taller lifts.
CJGeo used an onsite dry mix batch plant to generate the cellular concrete and pump it up to five hundred feet in the sewer line.
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Michigan Pipe Abandonment
The Job
This Michigan pipe abandonment project is located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As part of the Coldbrook Pumping Station decommissioning project, 2250LF of 48″ pipe, and 2300LF of 60″ pipe were specified for grout filling.
The Challenge
The primary challenge for the general contractor on this project was the sheer volume of abandonment grouting. The project also had a significant amount of smaller diameter pipe, but it was in shorter runs, so was easy for them to self-perform with flowable fill.
The Solution
CJGeo proposed using 25lb/cuft CJFill-Ultra Lightweight cellular concrete. CJFill-Ultra Lightweight can be pumped thousands of feet per placement. This eliminates the need for most intermediate access points. Placement points on this project were in the driveway of a fire station, next to a new riverwalk project, and also on the grounds of the pumping station.
CJGeo mobilized a dry batch cellular grout plant to the site, and made around 200 cubic yards per hour of CJFill-Ultra Lightweight to finish this Michigan pipe abandonment project. Each run was up to 2500 feet long at a time. The abandonment work took five days onsite. By utilizing on site dry batching, a snow storm and cold overnight temperatures did not affect the work.
After the crew was completed with this work, they moved to Detroit to perform annular space grouting on a 17′ diameter CSO outfall structure.
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Pregrouting for Hand Mining
The Job
This large CSO project in Alexandria, Virginia required pregrouting for hand mining. The hand mining was to install a new pipe below an existing influent tunnel, which is on piles. The hand mined tunnel was to connect two a secant pile shaft to a slurry wall pit, which are roughly 25′ apart.
The Challenge
The challenges on this project included:
- no drilling allowed without pre-probing
- 3′ thick secant pile walls
- unknown exact pile support layout of influent tunnel
- fully saturated soils
- potential debris in backfill under existing influent tunnel
The Solution
CJGeo proposed performing the permeation grouting using acrylate. Acrylate is exceptionally low viscosity, so well suited to the organic, fine-grained soils. Previous permeation grouting on the project was done with acrylamide. However, acrylamide is neurotoxic and carcinogenic, so the owner was happy to learn about acrylate, which has very similar properties, but is not neurotoxic or carcinogenic.
To avoid drilling, CJGeo developed a pushed/driven probe grouting installation. This approach uses 1/2″ diameter steel tubing driven to depth, and then grouted through during extraction.
The 3′ thick secant pile walls didn’t pose too much of an issue, clearance holes were drilled with hand-held percussion drills.
Drilling wasn’t allowed. The owner and design team were concerned about potentially hitting and damaging the pile foundation. Because there was the potential for debris, there would be no way to distinguish debris from a pile until it was potentially too late. By using groutable probe rods, CJGeo avoided all of this risk.
The fully saturated soils had relatively low permeability, and the site was constrained on two sides by the existing SOE structures. Performing permeation grouting when below the water table you’re limits the placement rate by the ability to displace the existing groundwater. Because of the water-tight walls on two sides of this pregrouting for hand mining application, take was slower than originally anticipated.
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New Jersey Pipe Abandonment
The Job
This New Jersey pipe abandonment project is located in northern New Jersey. First, the general contractor installed a new force main by micro tunneling. After the the new micro tunneled force main was in service, the existing force main had to have grout filling. The pipe is 24″, and about 6300 feet long.
The Challenge
The pipes ran underneath an existing roadway, so digging access points for flowable fill installation would have been expensive, time consuming, and disruptive to traffic. The general contractor recommended CJFill Low Density Controlled Low Strength Material (LD-CLSM) as an alternative to the controlled low strength material that the township typically uses.
In addition to the old force main abandonment, a wet well structure also required abandonment. The original plan was to use flowable fill, however there were concerns about inducing settlement if the fill material was heavy.
The Solution
CJGeo proposed using 25lb/cuft CJFill-Ultra Lightweight cellular concrete. CJFill-Ultra Lightweight can be pumped thousands of feet per placement. This eliminates the need for most intermediate access points.
CJGeo mobilized a dry batch cellular grout plant to the site, and made around 150 cubic yards per hour of CJFill-Ultra Lightweight to finish this New Jersey pipe abandonment project. Each run was up to 2500 feet long at a time. The abandonment work took two days onsite, with the preformed foam supplied by Aerix Industries. After the abandonment grouting was done, the CJGeo crew did the wet well abandoning work with 25lb/cuft CJFill-Ultra Lightweight.
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