Some ground improvement techniques, like piling and grouting, create spoil which, as it has to be removed from site, adds to cost. Keller offers innovative solutions to help its clients reduce and/or reuse spoil.
Challenges we can help solve
- A need to reduce spoil for disposal for environmental reasons, especially when disposal costs are high.
- A need to reduce the CO2 footprint of a project through recycling cement slurry.
- A need to reduce water consumption through recycling.
Using equipment to better manage spoil
The equipment that we use to manage spoil varies depending on project size, soil conditions and the available space on site.
All treatment systems use a shale shaker to remove large solids. You can then add an automatic chamber press, decanter centrifuge or dewatering plant to remove finer solids.
This reduces the sand content of the slurry, with the potential to save money in two ways. By lower disposal costs through the reduction in spoil volume. And by lower material costs by re-using the cement or other material in the recycled slurry.
Techniques we can use to do this
You can use this type of equipment any time it would be useful to separate solids and water.
- For example, in jet grouting to reduce and recycle jet grouting backflow.
- Shale shakers are often used for vibro compaction which uses water as part of the process. You can pump the mud that comes out of the bore hole onto the shale shaker, separate and re-use the water.
- For deep geothermal drilling using bentonite, you can pump the mud out, separate the solids and the water and then reuse it with more bentonite added.
- In some projects, the spoil from jet grouting can be used to perform another technique on site like deep soil mixing.
Benefits
- Potential to reuse processed fluid and cement or other material
- If processed water is reused, less water consumption
- Equipment with a small footprint can be used on urban and inner-city sites
- Less spoil and a significant reduction in waste disposal
- Lower costs