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PURPOSE OF REPAIR
Cause of the crack should be ascertained first. Commonest reason for repair : Prevention of corrosion to reinforcement. Crack widths less than 0.3mm does not cause corrosion. Cracking at right angles to the bar is relatively unimportant. Cracks along the length of the bar are more serious. Hiding cracks is difficult and filling them nearly always fail. Surface coating is a more successful method. Coating materials vary in their crack bridging properties and in their elasticity.
CEMENT GROUT
Cracks 1mm-2mm Brush with dry cement Followed by light water spraying.
POLYMER INJECTION
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
When full depth of crack is to be penetrated, injection of polymer grout under pressure is the most common method used.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Sealing cracks by injection: Start at one end and work progressively along the crack. For vertical or inclined cracks, injection should start at the lowest point and proceed upwards. A series of injection points are formed at intervals along the length of the crack and grout is injected into each point until it starts to flow out of the next one. The point in use is then sealed off and injection is started at the next point, so on until the entire length of the crack is treated.
INJECTION POINTS
First the cracks must be surface sealed. Rapid curing, polymer based materials can be used for this purpose. Adhesive tapes can be used if injection pressures are low. Holes are drilled along the crack at intervals and injection nipples are grouted in. There is a risk of holes being blocked by drilling, which can be reduced if hollow drills with an applied vacuum are available. Spacing of the injection points depends on:
Depth and width of crack Variation with depth Viscosity of grout Injection pressure.
Gravity feed is the normal method of injection where the cracks are greater than 0.5mm wide.
EQUIPMENTS
Funnel attached to a length of flexible tubing so as to provide a gravity head. Simplest mechanical equipment: A hand held gun that holds cartridge of resin grout. Hand held pump with the suction hose immersed in a container of resin grout. Pressure pots and pneumatic guns pressurized by compressed air. All the equipment described above work on a batch principle (A batch of grout is mixed and
injected, after which injection must stop while another batch is mixed and placed in the equipment.)
Lately Power driven equipments are used with resin & hardener not coming into contact with each other until they reach the injection head. This is basically used in the paint industry.
One way of achieving this is to cut a chase along the line of the crack. The sealant must then be adhered to the sides of the chase but debonded from the bottom so that movement is spread over the full width of the chase as shown in the figure. D is depth of sealant, S is the surface available for adhesion, W is the width of the joint.
Figure b shows a situation where although D is still equal to S, the width of the sealant is twice that value. This means that for any one situation, the force exerted will be considerably reduced.
In case c, S has been doubled and the top surface of the sealant W1 is twice the value of W. The depth of the seal is half the width of the joint, half of the area available for adhesion and a quarter of the top surface measurement. In this situation the face seal will cope with extensive movement without exerting extensive streses on the adhesive surfaces.
VACUUM IMPREGNATION
This is a patented process called Balvac process. Essentially, the affected part of the structure is enclosed within an air tight plastic cover that is sealed to the surface of the concrete at its edges. Vacuum is applied to exhaust all the air from cracks and crevices in the concrete within the cover. Resin grout is then admitted and atmospheric pressure forces it into cracks and pores in the concrete surface. It is particularly used for treating surfaces with a large number of cracks. It is also used extensively as a means of reducing permeability of weak concrete.