When their warehouse in Ireland continued showing the impact of severe and continued subsidence, Hosetech chose resin injection, rather than traditional piling, to treat the problem. Teretek®, geopolymer resin injection technology from ground engineering specialists Mainmark, provided a quick, cost-effective subsidence remediation and slab floor re-levelling solution when compared to the more disruptive traditional deep piling.
Hosetech manufacture and supply specialist hoses and fittings to a variety of businesses. They moved their new head office to Little Island, Co Cork in 2005. After a few months, signs of subsidence started to become apparent. Cracks first appeared in the concrete slab. As the ground settlement continued and the floor slab started to sink, the cracks got larger, especially in the warehouse area. Internal and external cracks also appeared in the block wall sections of the portal steel-framed building.
Surveys were commissioned and boreholes and trial pits revealed that the ground below the building comprised soft alluvial soil under made ground. In some areas, this type of soil with poor load-bearing capacity reached as much as 30m below ground level. The conclusion was that the original piles were not deep enough to continue providing adequate support to the steel frame structure above.
Hosetech were looking for a solution that could treat the symptoms of subsidence in the sinking warehouse floor in the shortest possible timeframe and with minimal disruption to business operations. Resin injection technology fitted the bill on both counts.
The technology works by injecting a liquid mixture of a resin and hardener into the ground where a reaction between the two causes the liquid to expand and set quickly. During this expansion, the geopolymer resin fills any voids, cracks and discontinuities within the ground. When applied under floor slabs, the expansion of the resin compacts the loose soil under the slab, creating a denser soil matrix. The whole process took a little over three weeks.
As the work was carefully planned to be carried out in sections of the warehouse at a time, the business could continue to operate.
Mainmark coordinated their treatment programme with Hosetech to minimise disruption by treating sections of the warehouse in turn at times that suited the business operation. In this way, stock could be relocated elsewhere and then returned once the process was complete.
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