• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09a
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• pp.1264-1273
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• 2010

Soil-bentonite cutoff walls are widely recognized to be the effective barrier for containment of wastes and groundwater. Bentonite cake is usually found remaining on the trench surface due to the use of bentonite slurry during the excavation for the cutoff wall construction. Defects also inevitably take place due to the inappropriate construction procedures or improperly mixed soil-bentonite backfill. The defects include insufficient keys and windows in the soilbentonite cutoff wall. In this study, the performance of the soil-bentonite cutoff wall is evaluated based on the flow rates through the wall. Three-dimensional numerical models were applied to simulate the groundwater flow through the soil-bentonite cutoff walls of typical geometries with consideration of the defects and bentonite cake. Results of the simulations showed that the bentonite cake has no effect in the insufficient key cases. In the keyed wall cases, the bentonite cake with very low hydraulic conductivity significantly impedes the flow of groundwater through the wall. The presence of the bentonite cake not only compromises the window defect but also renders the wall construction more effective in blocking the groundwater flow. These findings show the significance of the bentonite cake in a soil-bentonite cutoff wall construction.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1999.04a
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• pp.457-462
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to design the requirements for the materials of stabilizing slurry and to determine the optimum slruuy mix design used in the underground wall of Inchon LNG #213 and 214 tank. After the materials and mix conditions of stabilizing slurry investigated and tested, we propose materials and optimum mix design according to testing items including funnel viscosity, we propose materials and optimum mix design according to testing items including funnel viscosity, fluid loss, cake thickness and specific gravity. As this results, we select optimum mix design that the upper limit ratio of bentonite is 2.0%, polymer is 0.1% considering the funnel viscosity and dispersion agent is 0.05% considering the fluid loss. Also we select all materials which are composed of GTC4 as bentonite, KSTP as polymer and Bentocryl as dispersion agent. All test results are satisfied our specifications for stabilizing slurry.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.45-54
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• 2016

In this study, the construction method of new underground continuos impervious wall that the bentonite slurry keeps the stability of excavated trench and the mixture of cement and bentonite plays a role as a constituent of impervious wall in the trench. The merit of homogeneity of the method so called as a cement-bentonite slurry wall enables to accurately make an estimation of hydraulic conductivity of the walls compared with that by other general grouting methods and to verify their waterproof efficiency without difficulty at the design stage. The use of cement-bentonite slurry walls for the containment of groundwater flow has also proven a cost-effective impervious wall technology by employing the simple combination of construction equipments and easy and fast construction procedures. The engineering characteristics of cement-bentonite impervious wall obtained by carrying out the laboratory experiments under various conditions. This study reveals the effect of variation of constituent materials and their mixing methods (Water-Cement-Bentonite) on the engineering characteristics of a composition. Also, this study makes some recommendations on the optimum mixing ratio and mixing sequence for the best quality at the site. That is the most important factors to estimate the construction cost and design of the technique. The comparison is lastly made to evaluate the effect of ordinary Portland and blast furnace slag cement as a bonding material on the behavior of impervious walls.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 1998.09a
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• pp.119-159
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• 1998

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.773-786
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• 2018

In this paper, viscosity features of sealant (bentonite-cement slurry), which is used for umbrella arch method in tunnel, were studied. The sealant must secure optimal strength and capacity for the waterproof and stabilization of borehole as well as to satisfy groutability. In this study, the variation of viscosity was measured with different mixing processes. With an increase of initial mixing period with water and bentonite mixture, the required time for the rapid increase of viscosity of the sealant is shorten. With increase of mixing period, the possibility of swelling of bentonite will increases and this can lead increase of the viscosity of the mixture. In addition, the behaviors of sealant vary with a drastic increase of the viscosity: thixotropy and rheopexy. Furthermore, the bentonite/water mixing period influences on the bleeding features of the sealant. Further study is required to introduce the guideline, which can be applicable in the field in the aspect of required capacity of the sealants and mixing processes of the ingredients.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.66-72
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• 2013

In this study, the thermal conductive characteristics and basic properties of the nine commercial products of bentonite grouts were studied. Six of the nine products for ground heat exchanger systems are imported and others for civil engineering are domestic. The thermal conductivities of all bentonite products are nearly similar among products. The free swell indexes, viscosities and filter losses of the ground heat exchanger grouts are lower than those of the civil engineering ones. These characteristics seem to increase of the fluidity to fill the bentonite slurry to bore-hall perfectly, rather than to prevent underground water penetration. Thus, the mixtures of bentonites and sands are recommended for high thermal conduction grouts.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.53-62
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• 2011

During the construction of vertical cutoff walls, filtration of bentonite slurry into the adjacent soil formation fabricates a layer of bentonite filter cake on the wall surface. The bentonite filter cake possesses much lower hydraulic conductivity compared to that of backfill materials in the cutoff wall. Hydraulic conductivity of bentonite filter cakes formed with three different types of bentonites has been measured by performing the modified fluid loss test under various pressure levels. Three different mixture ratios, 4, 6, and 8%, were selected for fabricating bentonite filter cakes to represent common field conditions. Two analysis methods for interpreting the experimental data from the modified fluid loss tests were employed to estimate hydraulic conductivity of the bentonite cakes. The range of hydraulic conductivities of the three bentonite cakes is between $2.15{\times}10^{-11}\;m/s$ and $2.88{\times}10^{-10}\;m/s$ which is 1 to 2.7 orders of magnitude lower than that of the design cutoff wall backfill. The stress distribution and thickness of the bentonite cakes were also evaluated in this paper.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.27-32
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• 2021

Due to heavy rainfall and typhoons caused by climate change, it has become common to witness heavy rain that exceeds the design frequency of agricultural reservoirs. This has brought greater attention to the safety of irrigation facilities including agricultural reservoirs. Out of approximately 17,740 reservoirs available in Korea, 83.87% were built before 1970. To ensure the safety of these old reservoirs, their embankments are being repaired and reinforced using various techniques. Among these techniques, using the cement-bentonite cutoff wall makes it possible to construct diaphragm walls with slurry composed of cement and bentonite, while excavation. The advantages of this technique include that it is simple and fast, and ensures the uniformity of cutoff walls by enabling the immediate application of the replacement method to excavation areas; thus excellent performance is guaranteed. However, despite these advantages, the technique is not commonly used in Korea. Thus, this study investigated the changes in strength and permeability by varying the mix ratio of cement and bentonite. As a major experimental results, when the cement of 200 kg/m³ and the bentonite of 60 to 80 kg/m³ is most suitable for the repair and reinforcement of the reservoir embankments.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.243-256
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• 2019

Formation of filter cake with little slurry penetration into the tunnel face ground is an essential factor to successfully apply the slurry shield tunnel boring machine (TBM) for tunnelling work. However, when the bentonite slurry is in contact with seawater, it is not easy to guarantee the filter cake formation due to decrease of the swelling volume and viscosity of the slurry. In this study, in order to evaluate the effect of the seawater on the applicability of the slurry shield TBM method, the slurry injection tests were carried out with the variation of seawater percentage contained in the slurry samples as well as the variation of soil types. And then, the effect of these two factors on the slurry clogging phenomena was theoretically and experimentally figure out. As a result, it was found that the value of the slurry clogging criteria (SCC) indicating the applicability of the slurry shield TBM significantly decreases up to 67% as the percentage of seawater increases from 0% up to 20%. In addition, it was found to be necessary to take into account both the characteristics of slurry and soil types together when judging the applicability of the slurry shield TBM method by assessing the slurry penetration characteristics that will occur during tunnelling work.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.599-615
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• 2022

In order to excavate underground tunnel most safely such as Han river, the slurry shield TBM method is applied to cope with face of high water pressure for many metro projects. In downtown subway project most of excavated soil is discharged externally whereas in road construction excavated soil is used as filling materials so it becomes important factor for success of the project. After excavated soil, weathered rock and soft rock are discharged with bentonite through discharge pipe to slurry treatment plant then those soils are separated in separation plant according to those size. Fine grained soil has been discarded together with filter cake but it is not toxic and can be mixed with coarse aggregate in proper ratio so this study is performed to find use of qualified filling material to meet quality standard. Therefore, in this study, legal standards and quality standards for the utilization of excavated soil of the slurry shield TBM method were examined and test was conducted to derive recycling way for filter cake and aggregate. And a plan for using it as a filling material for road construction was derived. Because bentonite is a clay composed of montmorillonite, and the excavated soil in the tunnel is also non-toxic, disposal of this material can waste social cost so it is expected to be helpful in the underground space development project that carries out the TBM project by recycling it as a valuable resource.