Induced cementation of dredged marine soils for civil engineering reuse

Ports and harbour facilities require regular dredging to maintain trafficability and safety of the vessels. The material removed from the seabed, i.e. dredged marine soils, is generally considered a waste material for disposal, either in designated offshore locations or inland containment facilities...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Chan, Chee-Ming
Format: Conference or Workshop Item
Published: 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/6197/
http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/6197/1/Induced_Cementation_of_Dredged_Marine.pdf
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Summary:Ports and harbour facilities require regular dredging to maintain trafficability and safety of the vessels. The material removed from the seabed, i.e. dredged marine soils, is generally considered a waste material for disposal, either in designated offshore locations or inland containment facilities. Either measure incurs costs, time and labour, not to mention the obvious lack of sustainable values. Besides, there is always the risk of transferring undesirable contaminants in the dredged materials to the disposal sites, as well as along the transportation routes. It is however, possible to reuse this otherwise waste, with suitable and adequate pre-treatment. Considering that the material is essentially soil-based, primarily consisting sand, silt and clay with some larger marine debris, it is perhaps most apt to harness its inherent properties as a ‘soil’ and reuse it as a geomaterial. In civil engineering and construction terms, this would mean reusing the soils as a backfill material, for creating new land bases or restoring eroded ones in near-shore areas. However the inherent poor physico-mechanical properties of dredged soils, such as high saturation with water, low strength and high compressibility, make the material unsuitable to be reused as it is. An expedient approach is induced cementation, where additives are mixed with the soil to improve the necessary properties prior to reuse. This paper examines the induced cementation of some dredged marine soil samples from the Malaysian waters with cement and/or other binders. The common factors, such as binder dosage, curing period and water/binder ratios, were monitored to ascertain the mechanisms involved to enhance the material’s performance.