Field device to measure viscosity, density, and other slurry properties in drilled shafts : final report.

Details

• Creators:
  Mullins, Gray ; Mullins, Miles
• Corporate Creators:
  University of South Florida. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Contributors:
  Castellano, Juan
• Corporate Contributors:
  Florida. Department of Transportation
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Density
  • Excavation
  • Measuring instruments
  • Measuring methods
  • Slurry
  • Viscosity
  • Drilled shafts
  • augercast pile
  • thermal integrity test
  • quality assurance
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Edition:
  Final report
• Corporate Publisher:
  Florida Department of Transportation
• Abstract:
  Proper performance of mineral slurries used to stabilize drilled shaft excavations is maintained by assuring the ; density, viscosity, pH, and sand content stay within state specified limits. These limits have been set either by ; past experience, research findings and/or by manufacturer recommended values. However, field slurry testing ; is time consuming as all measurements are manually performed. With the overwhelming advances in digital ; down-hole devices, it is not unreasonable to assume that slurry property tests are equally applicable to this ; trend. ; The most commonly used test to indicate slurry viscosity is the Marsh Funnel Test which is essentially a ; timed flow for a fixed volume of slurry to exit a falling head funnel. Using a library of unique pressure versus ; flow rate responses for a wide range of slurry viscosities, an automated downhole device was designed and ; tested that incorporated these information to estimate viscosity in the excavation without the need to remove ; slurry in order to test. Direct measurement of slurry density was also incorporated into the device and the sand ; content was computed from density and the viscosity where the suspended solids that make up the density ; stems from both the slurry products and the soil cuttings. ; The prototype down-hole slurry testing system was shown to be surprisingly easy and fast to use ; despite the experimental nature of the device. A shaft sampled at 6 different depths was tested in less ; than 10 minutes. In contrast, conventional, manually performed testing were estimated by contractors ; to have taken more than an hour to perform the same number of tests.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  BDV25 TWO977-09
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/31051/dot_31051_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 20.87 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:1daffe05631ce71580ef0247b04b6c6f4ab0f20d7f6adb62ca7cce5202926529