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org

A NEW APPROACH TO DETERMINE THE DIAMETER OF A JET GROUTED

COLUMN USING SEISMIC METHODS
Sonja Mackens, Geotomographie GmbH, Neuwied, Germany
Thomas Fechner, Geotomographie GmbH, Neuwied, Germany
Neida I. C. Rios, TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Freiberg, Germany
Daryl Tweeton, GeoTom LLC, Apple Valley, Minnesota
Julio C.G. Guerreros, BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Berlin, Germany
Ernst Niederleithinger, BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Berlin, Germany

Abstract
Jet grouting is a geotechnical method of ground improvement to increase shear strength and
stiffness of soils. The method is typically used to construct in-situ geometries of grouted soil such as
panels or columns. The diameter of grouted columns and its material strength depend on various process
parameters and the subsurface soil properties. It is only vaguely possible to predict the final column
diameter. Therefore, it is a general practice to excavate a test column and perform a visual examination.
However, an excavation to control the in situ diameter is often impossible, especially under complex site
conditions, such as a high ground water table. Therefore, as part of a research project, borehole seismic
measurements (crosshole, downhole and tomography) were tested as a quality control to verify the
extent of the column and to monitor the influence of the jet grout injection on the soil over time. The
field surveys were conducted before and after the jet grouting process at different time intervals. The
acquired seismic data show clear traveltime differences which allow the determination of the specific
column depth and diameter. The tomogram measured in the natural soil and the tomograms of the
measurements after the injection process were used to visualize the time dependent effects of the jet
grout injection on the soil.

Introduction
Some of the most common jet grouting applications are foundation restoration, excavation
support and sealing. The jet grouting process works with a high kinetic energy jet of fluid to loosen and
mix the in-situ soil with a cement suspension. Typical jet grouted structures are panels, full columns or
anything in between (partial columns) with designed strength and permeability. Columns are generated
by rotating the drill stem and raising it. The purpose of the research project is to develop a method for
quality control which is needed to verify the grouting process and to define the diameter of a grouted
column. In order to perform a seismic field survey four boreholes have been drilled at the BAM testing
site in Berlin (Germany). Three columns have been installed by the jet grouting technique using
predefined process parameters. Seismic measurements have been conducted before and after the jet
grouting process at various time intervals. Different seismic methods were combined in order to
determine the diameter of the grouted columns and to assess the influence of the jet grout injection on
the soil after specific time periods.
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Test site
Within the frame of the research project a test site has been prepared on the BAM testing site
about 60 km south of Berlin. It is a general validation facility for various investigation purposes and
techniques. Geologically, the site belongs to the northern German Basin and consists of various
sediments with a thickness of several thousand meters affected by salt tectonics. The surface of the test
site is dominated by post glacial sediments consisting mainly of sandy layers of varying grain size and
admixtures of silt and organic material. The groundwater table is about 3 ± 1 m below surface and varies
seasonally (Niederleithinger et al., 2013).
Four boreholes have been drilled at the BAM test site (Figure 1), with one center borehole and
three surrounding boreholes in 120° intervals. The distance between the boreholes and the center
borehole is about 3 m and the borehole depths are about 15 m. Three grouted columns have been
installed under controlled conditions in September 2014. The columns were placed half way from the
center borehole BH1 to the three outer boreholes. Based on the experiences of the jet grouting
contractor, the local soil conditions and the technological parameters of the grouting process the general
diameter of the columns is estimated to be around 1.2 m.

Figure 1: Sketch of the borehole locations (BH = borehole) and columns (Col = column). Measured
seismic sections are shown in red.

Field survey
The seismic measurements were carried out between approximate depths of 15 and 1 m b.g.l. A
first survey was carried out in late June 2014 to acquire field data for the reference state. Additional
surveys followed directly after the jet grouting process as well as 7 and 28 days after. The location of the
seismic sections can be taken from Figure 1 (red lines). In order to generate high frequency P-wave
signals an electromechanical impulse source type BIS-SH (Geotomographie brand) was used. A string
of 24 hydrophones type BHC4 (Geotomographie brand) with a sensor spacing of 0.5 m was used as a
receiver to carry out seismic tomography measurements. The measurement interval was set to 0.5 m to
reach a sufficient resolution. Data were recorded by a DMT Summit seismograph. The signal data
quality was improved by signal stacking. In order to perform the downhole testing (ASTM D 7400,
2008) pipes were installed in the middle of each column shortly after grouting. The deviations of all
boreholes were measured to determine the exact position of the seismic sensors and source installed in
the boreholes.
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Results
Subsequently, one representative column (Col 2) has been chosen as an example. In order to
calculate the diameter of the jet grouted columns the tomography dataset was reduced to the horizontal
ray paths. During seismic data processing first arrival traveltimes of the P-waves have been picked for
each parallel source-receiver position of the reference state dataset and for the dataset gathered 28 days
after the injection process when the cement suspension had reached the expected final strength (e.g.
Wesche, 1993). Figure 2 shows the traveltime curves of the cross ray paths for each parallel source-
receiver pair without (black line) and with the grouted column in between (red line). After 28 days a
substantial decrease of traveltimes between 4 m and 11 m can be observed (Figure 2, left) indicating the
specific boundaries of the column.
-3 -3
-4 -4
-5 -5
-6 -6
Depth [m]

Depth [m]
-7 -7
-8 -8
-9 -9
-10 -10
-11 -11
-12 -12
-13 -13

1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 0 1 2

Traveltime [ms] Thickness [m]

Figure 2: Left: Measured traveltime curves of the reference state (black line) and 28 days after the
injection process (red line) for Col 2. Right: Calculated diameter of the grouted column (Col 2).

The calculation of the diameter Dcol is based on the assumption that the traveltime of the seismic
wave propagating from one borehole to the other is the sum of the traveltime in the column and in the
natural soil on both sides of the column. The calculation requires the knowledge of the distance between
the boreholes dBH, the velocity of the natural soil without the column vsoil, the average velocity of the
soil with the column in place vmean and the velocity of the grout column itself vcol. The distance between
the boreholes is known from borehole deviation measurements. The velocity vsoil is taken from the
measurement of the reference state before the injection process. The average velocity can be measured
after the injection process and the wave velocity of the column vcol using a downhole test. The velocity
of the grouted material was determined to be 3.3 km/s verified by laboratory ultrasonic experiments. The
diameter can be calculated by the following equation (Eq.1):
dBH ∙ vcol vsoil
Dcol = ∙ −1
vsoil − vcol vmean Eq.1
The determined diameter varies between 1.1 and 1.4 m and the depth extent between 4.5 and 10.5 m for
column 2 (Figure 2, right). The general depth and the mean diameter of the column can be used to set
boundary conditions to perform the tomographic inversion, described in the following.
In order to visualize velocity changes of the soil after the injection process the complete
tomography dataset was used. The tomographic software GeotomCG was used to calculate the
tomogram of the reference state using the Simultaneous Iterative Reconstruction Technique (Lehmann,
2007). The reference model was taken as the starting model to calculate the tomograms 3.5 hours, 7 days
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and 28 days after the injection (Figure 3). In general, the tomography method performed with the given
source and receiver configurations does not provide sufficient resolution for vertical structures.
Therefore, it was unavoidable to set boundary conditions during the inversion procedure using all
available information to obtain a better resolution to image the inner structure of the vertical column.
The application of constraints enables the user to define cells in which seismic velocities remain
constant and cells in which seismic velocities can vary (Santamarina & Fratta, 1998). Based on the
previous determination of the column depth and the calculated diameter the boundary conditions were
set as shown in Figure 3. The velocities of the center cells where the column is supposed to be installed
can be freely adjusted (Figure 3, light blue). The width of this area was set to 1.6 m, one cell size larger
than the maximum calculated diameter of 1.4 m. The velocities of the cells directly next to the expected
column are not completely unconstrained but allow a larger influence of the previous velocities. The
seismic velocities of the cells surrounding the source and receiver boreholes and below the expected
column, which are assumed to be not influenced by the injection, remain unaltered from the starting
model (Figure 3, dark blue).

Figure 3: Reference state tomogram, boundary conditions and tomograms after the injection process.
The black lines indicate the calculated column boundaries.

The tomograms show the time dependent effects of the jet grouting on the seismic velocity of the
soil (Figure 3). After 3.5 hours the injection leads to a slight decrease of seismic velocities close to the
surface in a depth between around 5 and 8 m in the center area where the column is supposed to be
installed. The velocities are around 1.6 km/s while the reference state shows velocities of around
1.9 km/s. It is expected that the soil loses strength directly after the injection process due to the mixed
cement suspension. Between 8 and 10.5 m the velocities increase to a maximum of 2.5 km/s at the
bottom. The reason for the velocity differences inside the column after 3.5 hours may likely be caused
by different setting times of the cement because the injection process started at the bottom. After 7 days
the velocity increase inside the column is substantial and reaches values between 2.7 and 3 km/s. The
velocity difference between the tomogram after 7 and 28 days are only marginal. This suggests that a
sufficient strength of the cement is certainly reached after a maximum of 7 days. According to different
literature (e.g. Wesche, 1993) it is confirmed that the development of the cement strength depends
primarily on time. It is known that within the first 1-2 days the strength increases rapidly. The increase
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of strength afterwards is less significant and after 28 days almost no additional increase in strength can
be noticed. Small differences between the diameter approximated by geometric assumptions using
horizontal ray paths and the diameter received from tomographic inversion can be noticed. It might be
caused by the velocity of the grouted material which was assumed to be constant for the calculation
although the velocities inside the column vary as shown in Figure 3.

Conclusions
A new quality control method has been proposed to verify the diameter of jet grouted columns
using borehole seismics. The surveys were carried out before and after the injection process at a test site
in Berlin (BAM testing site) prepared with three jet grouted columns using specific pressure and grout
density parameters. A downhole test was used to determine the acoustic velocity of the grouted material.
By relatively simple geometric assumptions the approximate diameter of jet grouted columns can be
calculated using the horizontal rays of the dataset. The calculated specific depth and diameter of the
column can be used to set boundary conditions to perform the tomographic inversion. Tomography
results show the time dependent effects of grouted injections on the soil velocity and thus on the
stiffness. Within the first 4 hours too many effects seem to prevent a reliable result. Hence, the results
obtained so far suggest that a reliable seismic testing can be made in a time frame of 1 to 7 days after the
injection process.

References
ASTM D7400 (2008) Standard Test Methods for Downhole Seismic Testing, American Society
for Testing and Materials (ASTM).
Kindt, J. and Jones, C., 2007, Results of a cross-hole seismic tomography survey in the
downstream test section at the Tuttle Creek dam modification project, International Water Power and
Dam Construction, 59 (2), pp. 38-41.
Lehmann, B., 2007, Seismic Traveltime Tomography for Engineering and Exploration
Applications, EAGE Publications, pp. 31-36.
Niederleithinger, E., Baeßler, M, Herten, M., Rumpf, M., Tronicke, J., 2013, Geotechnical and
geophysical characterization of a pile test site in post-glacial soil, Geotechnical and Geophysical Site
Characterization 4, pp. 459-464.
Santamarina, J. C., Fratta, D., 1998, Introduction to Discrete Signals and Inverse Problems in
Civil Engineering, ASCE Press, Reston, VA, pp. 327.
Wesche, K., 1993, Baustoffe für tragende Bauteile, Band 2: Beton, Mauerwerk, Bauverlag
GmbH, Wiesbaden und Berlin, p. 349.

Acknowledgment
Funding for this research was provided by the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und
Technologie as part of the ZIM (Zentrales Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand) program (KF
3163801AT3.