Resumen de Grouting rock fractures with cement and sodium silicate grout
Weijie Zhang, Shucai Li, Jiuchuan Wei, Qingsong Zhang, Rentai Liu, Xiao Zhang, Huiyong Yin
Quick-setting grout has been widely used in sealing underground excavations to prevent water ingress. Cement and sodium silicate grout (C–S grout), a typical quick-setting slurry, is becoming increasingly more popular in fracture-sealing grouting operations in China because of its short gel time, high early strength and sufficient sealing efficiency. C–S grout contains a cement slurry and sodium silicate solution. During the process of mixing and pouring these two components into the rock fracture, the viscosity of the grout suspension varies over time, which has a considerable influence on the fracture grouting of the C–S slurry. In this study, analytical expressions were derived by implementing the mass conservation equation and radial grouting flow behavior and considering the time-varying slurry viscosity. These governing equations can be used to evaluate the propagation of C–S grout in a planar fracture. Also, the effects of the main factors on the penetration length were investigated, revealing that the rheology of the C–S grout is inherently related to the influence of other parameters, such as injection pressure, injection rate and fracture aperture width, on the fracture grouting. The validation of the proposed approach is examined by comparing the simulation results with the published experimental data. The simulated grouting pressure and pressure distribution in the grouted zone are consistent with experimental observations.
