Study on Microfine Cement Grouting Material for Silty Fine Sand Stratum

Abstract

Silty fine sand is the second smallest sand with a particle diameter ranging from 0.0625 to 0.120 mm.This kind of sand exists in a large amount in Beijing subway excavation project. Due to the poor self-stabilization of this stratum,seeping , sand flow and collapse take place frequently. Grouting materials such as Portland cement and soluble glass (also called sodium silicate) are employed in most of excavation projects to reinforce this sand stratum. However, the reinforcement is not effective, leading to a large amount of accidents in the process of construction. The reason may be attributed to the fact that Portland cement is unable to penetrate into the stratum and the strength of soluble glass (0.6MPa) is too weak to resist the stratum pressure. To solve this problem, a modified microfine cement grouting material able to penetrate into silty fine sand stratum is developed in this paper. A combination of suspension and diluent is used to increase the penetration extension of the grouts,and the experimental results reveal that the addition of the mixture of suspension and diluent in microfine cement grouting materials improves the penetration property substantially.