EFFECT OF TREATED OIL SANDS DRILL CUTTINGS WASTE ON MICROPILES GROUT PROPERTIES

Moustafa Aboutabikh, Ahmed Soliman, Hesham El Naggar

Dans les comptes rendus d’articles de la conférence: GeoQuébec 2015: 68th Canadian Geotechnical Conference & 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference

Session: Mining Geotechnique IV / Géotechnique minière IV

ABSTRACT: A micropile is constructed by drilling a hole, placing a steel reinforcing element, grouting it using neat cement. However, cement production consumes energy and generates carbon dioxide. To develop sustainable and environmentally benign micropile construction, a feasibility study was performed on using treated oil sands drill cuttings waste (TOSW) as a partially replacement of cement in micropiles. Results show that TOSW did not affect the flowability for grout mixtures. Increasing TOSW replacement level reduced the 28-day grout compressive strength slightly, while strength gain rate had increased at later ages. Moreover, the achieved strength was still higher than the required strength by different standards. Results suggest that TOSW can be used in micropiles leading to environmental and economic benefits.

RÉSUMÉ: Un micropieu est construit en perçant un trou, en plaçant un élément de renforcement d'acier et en utilisant un coulis de ciment pour étanchéifier celui-ci. Toutefois, la production de ciment consomme de l'énergie et génère du dioxyde de carbone. Pour développétude de faisabilité a été exécutée sur l'utilisation des déchets des sables bitumineux traités (TOSW) comme remplaçant partiel du ciment dans les micropieux. Les résultats montrent que les TOSW n'ont pas affecté la fluidité des mélanges de après 28 jours, tandis que le taux de résistance gagné augmente par la suite. De plus, la résistance en compression atteinte était toujours plus grande que la résistance requise par les différentes normes. Les résultats proposent que les TOSW puissent être utilisés dans les micropieux, menant à des avantages économiques et environnementaux. 1. INTRODUCTION Micropiles are small diameter (less than 300 mm), drilled and grouted piles that can be used to provide foundation support for structures and soil improvement. Typically the construction of micropiles involves the usage of grout in order to achieve a high strength grout-ground bond. The method of grouting has a major impact on the capacity of micropiles and a part of micropiles classification refers to methods of grouting. Grout are designed to transfer loads between the reinforcement and surrounding ground, it can be a part of the load-bearing cross section of the pile and, it increases the corrosion resistance of steel reinforcement. Therefore, the grout must have suitable properties of fluidity, strength and stability. A great challenge now for civil and environmental engineers is to divert industrial waste towards useful construction purposes. In the last few years, oil sands industry became an increasingly major driver behind the economic activity. While contributing to the economic, oil sands industry is one of the top waste production industries in western Canada. Oil sands drilling cuttings waste represents one of the most difficult challenges for the oil sands mining sector. Different technologies had been applied as a pre-treatment process to convert these oil sands drilling cuttings waste to a reusable product. Recently, an innovative technology (so called Thermo-mechanical Cuttings Cleaner (TCC)) for treating oil sands drilling cuttings while recovering hydrocarbons was proposed. In the TCC, the waste is heated to a temperature just high enough to evaporate oil and water. The oil and water will be brought back to a liquid phase in separate condensers. The remaining solids (i.e. by-products) of TCC is a very fine quartzes powder with a high surface enrichment of Aluminum/Silica which increases its potential as a filler material for constructional applications. On the other hand, cement is one of the major contributors to the climate change. Just one ton of Portland cement produced emits approximately one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere (Meyer, 2009). In addition, it consumes substantial natural resources and energy. In order to achieve green concrete, cement can be partially replaced by inert materials, or by supplementary cementitious materials granulated blast furnace slag (Sato, 2006). To add a new material as a replacement of cement it should have

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