Abstract:
Platforms such as the six successive international conferences on grouting have allowed tremendous advances in the industry to be chronicled and promoted. As a result, the state of practice and the standard of care are unrecognizable from where they stood 40 years ago. This revolution has been a classic example of the power of supply and demand: the supply side of the equation has been provided by a small group of specialty contractors and consultants responding to the demands placed by owners of major dams whose foundations have been proved dangerously susceptible to deterioration at alarming rates, so posing intolerable risks to dam safety. However, the authors continue to find cases where either the revolutionary innovations have been ignored – either through ignorance or inertia – or where the new approaches are being subverted, usually for commercial gain. This recidivistic tendency threatens to undermine the transition to the quantitatively engineered approaches of the past four decades which have dragged the reputation of grouting out of the trope of being “ Smoke and Mirrors” , or a “ Dark Art” . In this paper the authors provide examples of practices and concepts which should be recognized as being wrong, to the point that project efficiency and quality will suffer, and the reputation of grouting will be degraded. These examples include aspects of drilling, placing and sealing standpipes, choice of mix designs, definitions of refusal and closure, real time monitoring, and issues dealing with the design and pricing of projects. Although the focus is on rock grouting, many of the points have relevance to other grouting techniques also.