Background

In 2013- Strathclyde university academics started a project that developed a system comprising specialised grout additives, a grout detection system and interpretation tools, the combination of which will allow grouting practitioners to visualise injected grout bodies in 3D. Current approaches to grouted barrier construction are limited by an inability to determine the precise distribution of grout post-injection, in turn making verification of barrier geometry highly complex.

Technology Overview

The construction and mining industries spends multi-millions of pounds on grouting rocks and soils each year via borehole injection. For example, £5M was spent grouting the ground for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. One of the greatest difficulties with grouting is an inability to detect where the grout has gone – companies just pump grout in blind, essentially only stopping when they can get simply no more in. A detectible grout could result in reduced costs by reducing the density of injection holes and allowing for iterative grouting campaign design. The new detectible grout is designed to be detectible once injected from the ground surface (or from within a tunnel) ().

Benefits

There is a major opportunity to change industry practise. This is currently cited by industry as one of their biggest problems as they essentially pump it in ‘blind’ with no idea where it has gone and hence no idea as to the volume and location of ‘sealed’ soil/rock.

Contaminated material to be hydraulically isolated in-situ so that radionuclide activity can decay to acceptable levels in-situ, displacing excavation-based techniques during site decommissioning. This would have economic and environmental benefits through a reduction in waste disposal volumes and this will also help to minimise worker radioactive dose rate, enabling more effective workforce management.

Magnetic Grout Detection Method and System

Patents

IP Status

Seeking