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29-5.4 Underwater Concrete - Mix Design and Construction Practices PDF
29-5.4 Underwater Concrete - Mix Design and Construction Practices PDF
29-5.4 Underwater Concrete - Mix Design and Construction Practices PDF
The underwater concrete technology has historically evolved largely through a trial-and-
error process of constructing marine works. Many outstanding examples exist of high
quality concrete placed underwater. However, failures also occurred and led to excessive
cost and/or schedule overruns. These failures were largely due to improper concrete mix
design or improper placement. The problems may have occurred because proper
underwater concrete construction techniques and experience have not been widely
disseminated. This section focuses on technical issues of underwater concrete mix
design, concrete production and placement, and quality control.
In order to minimize cement washout and laitance, Excessive obstruction to flow, such as closely
the placement operation should cause as little spaced reinforcing bars, would cause buildup and
disturbance to the concrete underwater as possible. sudden overflow of concrete. This tends to create
Most of the disturbance occurs during starting and trapping laitance. It is a good practice to limit the
restarting of the placement, or due to loss of the maximum size of the aggregate to facilitate the
seal, or by dragging the tremie horizontally while concrete flow. A rule of thumb is to keep the clear
embedded in the concrete underwater. This requires spacing between bars at least 5 times the maximum
that the tremie pipe be embedded in fresh concrete size of coarse aggregates. This greatly exceeds
to a minimum depth of 0.7 m (2 ft). Vertical some code provisions for concrete placed in air. But
movement of the tremie pipe should be limited to it is necessary, because the driving force to cause
that absolutely necessary. Horizontal movement of the concrete flow is reduced due to buoyancy of
embedded tremie pipes should be generally water.
prohibited.
Reinforcement or other obstructions should be
There are two basic techniques to start tremie detailed to facilitate the concrete flow. In general,
placement the dry method and wet method. While large size steel bars are preferred to a large number
the dry method utilizes an end cap to seals off a of small bars. Bundled bars are preferred to single
tremie pipe from the water entry, the wet method bars at closer spacing. Mechanical couplers are
utilizes a moving plug to prevent the concrete from preferable to lap splices. On the other hand, flowing
mixing with water. The plug fits tightly inside a tremie concrete can impart a significant force on the
pipe. As concrete is fed into the tremie, the plug reinforcement. It is desirable to make the
slides down under weight of the concrete and push reinforcement into cages that are securely supported
out water in a piston-like action. to the forms at multiple points.
1. The workers should have been properly trained 8. Periodic checking of concrete delivery and
and supervised full time by an experienced placement equipment. Before using a tremie
foreman or engineer who is familiar with the pipe, all the joints should be checked for
requirements for good workmanship. possible leakage.
2. Contractor should conduct frequent testing of 9. Adequate contingency plans should be provided
concrete from batch-to-batch and within a batch. in the Contractors quality assurance program. If
Important tests include slump, slump flow, unit the sounding data indicate an undesirable
weight, temperature, and concrete compressive distribution of tremie concrete, the foreman will
strength of concrete cylinders. determine the need to adjust the placement rate
or relocate the tremie according to the
3. After the concrete hardens, cores should be contingent plan.
taken to verify the quality of the in-place
concrete. Locations of the coring should be CONCLUSIONS
determined by the project engineer after
examining the concrete placement log. Underwater concreting is often a critical component
of the marine foundation construction. It is
4. Continuous soundings at predetermined and technically demanding, usually on the critical path of
well-marked locations over the entire placement the project schedule, and involves complex
areas. All sounding data should be recorded on construction logistics. Therefore, its significance in
data sheets and submitted to the project the project goes far beyond the concreting
engineer at the end of each shift. A typical operations themselves. This is the area where
sounding device is a plate connected onto a sound design and competent construction planning
weighted line marked for easy reading. can achieve a meaningful reduction in risk and cost.
Alternatively, sonar depth finders may be used
to constantly monitor the depth of concrete at
specific locations. Underwater inspection or
monitoring by divers without independent
soundings is not recommended.