Application of Jet Grouting and Cutter Soil Mixing in Ice-Rich Soils-Video

Video Transcription

Video Summary

At Alaska’s remote Red Dog Mine, WSP Golder and Bauer trialled jet grouting and cutter soil mixing (CSM) to improve a dam foundation containing potentially liquefiable, ice-rich soils, cobbles and boulders. Severe weather and limited access added logistical challenges.<br /><br />The team tested different treatment approaches and assessed the results using wet-grab samples, vertical and inclined cores, and optical televiewer imaging. Jet-grout samples met strength requirements, but core observations showed breaks and incompletely treated zones; the trial could not conclusively demonstrate treatment of the frozen soils. CSM produced more homogeneous results, and both pre-drilled and non-pre-drilled panels performed well. Pre-drilling also appeared to improve treatment quality and could be faster.<br /><br />The trials showed that CSM could effectively treat the ice-rich native soils without unusually high cement content. The mine’s full ground-improvement design was therefore based on CSM, which Bauer installed in 2020–2021.

Keywords

Red Dog Mine

jet grouting

cutter soil mixing

ground improvement

ice-rich soils