Assessment of URETEK Deep Injection Process.

摘要

This project assesses the capacity of an in-situ urethane stabilized soil mass to halt subsidence on an Interstate highway. An area of subsidence is approximately 100 meters long in the southbound barrel of I- from mile marker 0.124 to 0.153 in Hartford, VT. The location’s annual average daily traffic is amongst the highest in eastern Vermont, averaging 38,000 vehicles per day. Historically, the roadway section was originally constructed in the 1950’s and it is believed that the majority of the fill material used was taken from the rock cut sections in the connecting ramps on the south side of the I-89/I-91 interchange. Project Hartford IM 089-1 (60) was initiated and bids were let on the project in 2013 to stabilize the site and alleviate ongoing maintenance costs. For planning and design purposes, Applied Research Associates (ARA) consultants were contracted to determine the extent of the instability through a variety of noninvasive geophysical and non-destructive testing. This data was utilized to approximate the total amount of injection material that would be needed to stabilize the area through the injection process. URETEK USA was subcontracted through J.A. McDonald to use a patented deep injection method to stabilize the underlying subsurface of the highway. URETEK 486, a family of two-component, lightweight expansive polymers developed by Bayer Material Science LLC of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was injected in the base soil in a grid pattern, typically 4-foot by 4-foot to stabilize and compact weaker or loose soils to improve the load bearing capacity. The material was injected in cold temperatures successfully. This report summarizes the installation and first year data