Abstract Summary
Geotechnical engineering aims to adapt properties of soils to fit for purpose for a wide range of civil engineering applications such as dikes and embankments for water safety and roads, foundation engineering for buildings and other infra-structure such as quay-walls, bridges and tunnels. In the past decades several approaches have been developed inspired on natural phenomena or which use biological processes because this technology may have a signficantly lower footprint than current approaches in civil engineering. We have been developing a suite of bio-based and nature-inspired geotechnical engineering approaches to manage contaminated sites such as landfills, strengthen soils with microbial induced carbon precipitation or to reduce the permeability of soils by mimicking the precipitation of organo-metal complexes. Because of our strong conviction that innovation is an iterative process where university research is taken to practice as quickly as possible, nearly all of these projects are carried out in close collaboratin with industry partners. In this paper we present an overview of the development of the SoSEAL approach where the first concepts were developed in an STW project which then was adapted by an industry consortium to further develop in to a technology for reducing the risk of piping in river dikes. In addition to a short description of the fundamental theory behind the method we will focus on the iterative research process where laboratory research is alternated with field experiments with industry partners in the lead. SoSEAL is inspired by the process that occurs in the development of podzol soils. In these soils, dissolved organic matter percolates through the soil, leaching cat-ions from the top soil. Due to changes in soil structure and soil chemistry, organo-metal complexes precipitate in very distinct thin layers deeper in the soil. These layers have a lower permeability than the original soil. The technology we developed is based on the ex-situ formation of organo-metal flocs which can be injected in the soil. In time small flocs in the soil coalesce to form bigger flocs which eventually become so large that they no-longer can move freely through the pore space. The consequence is a significantly reduced permeability. This technique is currently being developed in an industry driven project in to an approach to prevent piping under dikes.
