Biogrouting of hydraulic fill fine sands for reclamation projects

Biogrouting, which is a new method for soil improvement, was used in an attempt to cement a type of hydraulic fill fine sands (called black sands) in reclamation projects in Tianjin, China, to form a working layer for mechanical equipment. Several factors influencing biogrouting with regard to cementing solution, including injection frequency, reaction time, concentration, and flow rate, were controlled to prepare black sand columns. This paper reports on an investigation of bacterial fixation, calcium ion utilization, and calcium carbonate distributions of biogrouted sand specimens. At the end of the tests, the geotechnical performances of the sand specimens were determined. The results showed that the biogrouting method effectively solidified black sands, by increasing the unconfined compressive strength of a sand column to 1.91 MPa and reducing the permeability coefficient by three orders of magnitude. A relationship between the unconfined compressive strengths and calcium carbonate contents was put forward, in addition to a relationship between the permeability coefficients and the calcium carbonate contents. According to the experimental results, some reasonable suggestions regarding the application of biogrouting to the consolidation of hydraulic fill fine sands in reclamation projects were proposed.