The Job
The JW Marriott Plant Riverside is an adaptive reuse hotel project of a decommissioned power plant in Savannah, Georgia. As a thermal generation facility, there are extensive water tunnels below the structure. The tunnels were cast in place during original construction, and integrated into the pile supported foundation.
The Challenge
As part of the conversion from thermal power generation to luxury hotel, the tunnels needed to be filled. Due to concerns about inducing settlement with traditional flowable fill, the designer specified EPS Geofoam blocks. These would have effectively eliminated loads, but were deemed impossible to install.
The Solution
Someone onsite had heard of cellular concrete, so reached out to CJGeo. CJGeo evaluated the layout of the tunnels, isolation methods from the river, and designed a mix which would ensure both complete filling of the structures without adding any additional load.
CJGeo placed approximately 930CY of 20lb/cuft CJFill-UL cellular concrete over a period of three days. Because CJFill-UL is highly mobile, demo debris from the access holes for building bulkheads was left in the tunnels and encapsulated with the CJFill-UL.
