Brief overview of the various families of grouts and their aplications

It is difficult to maintain an up-to-date overview of all the grouts presently used on the international market. Better grouts are continuously developed and more formulators are making their appearance. Consequently, it is difficult to clearly define all of the products in the industry. This topic has been the subject of numerous papers and textbooks. Most authors, however, only focus on their fields of interest: applications in geotechnical, or rehabilitation, or seepage control in civil engineering, oil or mining industry. There has been a limited transfer of technology from one field to the other because of the enormous differences in magnitude, site conditions and consequently the application techniques. The tools an engineer has are: his expertise in grouting and engineering background, equipment available or to be designed or modified to carry out a particular job, relevant data available from other sciences, and products with a variety of characteristics. This paper concentrates on product selection. The most suitable product for a particular project requires a good understanding of the general chemical and mechanical characteristics of the grout. The grouts have been classified into four categories for the purpose of this paper. There may be other methods of classification; however, this is only an attempt to help the industry with the selection of the most suitable grout for a given application. The four categories are: suspension grouts, chemical grouts, hot melts, and precipitation grouts. 1 fig