In the civil engineering industry, Ashland Aqualon Functional Ingredients specializes in providing additives for bentonite-containing, aqueous engineering fluids. Our water-soluble polymers effectively thicken the bentonite dispersion to provide wall stability, greater fluid loss control, and to act as a barrier to open formations.
Tunneling: Tunnel boring machines (TBMs) excavate tunnels with a circular cross section through rock. A slurry or foam is used in this process as a vehicle to remove and transport the cuttings to the solids treatment station.
AQUALON® carboxymethylcellulose has excellent performance in this application as it provides fluid rheology modification, fluid loss reduction, suspension, viscosity and stability against contaminants.
Microtunneling: This process uses a remotely controlled microtunnel boring machine (MTBM) combined with a pipe jacking technique to directly install product pipelines underground in a single pass.
Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD): A trenchless construction method involving drilling a small pilot hole and then "steering" the drilling head remotely from the surface. A pilot bore is launched from the surface at an angle and then gradually goes horizontal as the targeted depth is reached.
Special Foundations: In the building and drilling industries, bentonite suspensions or polymer muds are used to stabilize horizontal boreholes and provide support in the construction of diaphragm walls, slurry walls and retaining walls.
Bentonite Doping (Bentonite Extenders): Boost the performance and quality of high yield bentonites through lower fluid loss, improved swelling capacity of the bentonite, better stabilization of mud suspensions, increased shear thinning (improved pumpability), and improved dosage from use of high yield extenders (less bentonite needed) which also significantly reduce waste disposal.
Products for Civil Engineering Applications
Ask an Expert for help finding a solution for your application or Contact Us.