Stop mechanism for cementitious grouts at different water-to-cement ratios

Cementitious grouts are the most commonly used grouting material in the world. The general concept of grouting is to propagate the grout in a sufficiently large volume in the grouted medium and hence to have a controlled penetration. This study has been performed in order to determine and test the different mechanisms that result in stoppage of the penetration of cementitious grouts. This is performed as sand column tests in a laboratory study, coupled with grouting in the field. The result shows that three different stop mechanisms can be identified depending on the ratio between the grain size of the grout and the available opening. At an opening up to three times the size of the largest grout grains, penetration does not occur due to clogging of the grains. For an opening larger than five times the largest grain the penetration is unrestricted and stoppage occurs due to equilibrium between the driving and resistance forces. Between these ratios, a transition area exists where the water content determines the penetrability and the stoppage is governed by a filtration process for the grout grains. This implies that grouting with higher water-to-cement ratios results in a larger penetration area and hence by applying the mixture-thickening method during grouting an increased sealing efficiency can be obtained.