Innovative Water Cut Off Solution for a Hard Rock Tunnel

Location: Sudbury, ON
Sector: Tunnels
Category: Cement Grouting

Description

A large tunneling contractor found itself in a difficult situation with a large flowing water leak in a new rock tunnel 20 metres underground. During tunnel construction, localized areas of bad ground conditions were encountered, characterized by heavily fractured rock.

Conventional cement grouting was used by the tunneling contractor to control water inflows in some of these areas. An evaluation of the particular site conditions by the Multiurethanes crew determined that debris and broken ground made it impossible to accurately identify the primary water-bearing fracture as experienced by the tunneling crew when initial injections were washed out by the large water inflow.

An innovative solution involving chemical grouting through single grout hole injection while isolating and identifying nearby localized leaks was successfully implemented. The specialized nature of the water cut-off grouting work required a combination of materials, equipment and experience, including Multiurethanes Universal Resin, a pneumatic chemical pump and skilled grouting techniques performed by our experienced grouting specialists.

The secret to this successful water cut-off project was the application of appropriate grouting techniques, equipment and materials for the existing site conditions.