Evaluating and Comparing of Three Penetrability Measuring Devices : Modified Filter Pump, Modified Penetrability Meter, and Short Slot

Rock grouting is a commonly used process for sealing rocks in tunnels to reduce water ingress. In order to achieve sufficient sealing level the grout must effectively penetrate into rock fractures while the limiting factor is filtration of cement based grout. Many devices and measuring methods have been developed to study filtration and to measure the penetrability. The filter pump and the penetrability meter are two of the most commonly used instruments for measuring filtration tendency in the field and in the lab, while short slot is used mainly in the lab. The results obtained from these devices have relatively different estimations of the penetrability partly due to the weaknesses in measuring methods and test procedures. Furthermore, there are no clear criteria to find out which of the results are closer to the reality or how much the results differ among these instruments. The aim of this study is comparing, and evaluating the results of these devices in relatively similar conditions while using more accurate methods of weight-time and pressure-time compared to the less reliable total volume method. The filter pump and the penetrability meter were modified In order to fulfill the requirement of testing in similar conditions and to improve their accuracy and versatility. The results show that increasing the pressure improves the penetrability significantly. The modification of the filter pump results in reducing many uncertainties related to the testing procedure. Probably the modified filter pump has higher accuracy in measuring the penetrability compared to regular filter pump. The short slot has the highest accuracy in estimating penetrability of cement based grout especially at higher pressures, furthermore, the short slot provides a more flexible way to measure penetrability with different pressures in the range of 1-15 bars