This article contains an excerpt from the “SealBoss Concrete Solution Network Podcast – Seawall Repair | Bulkhead Repair | Erosion Control | Permeation Grouting”,  featuring Jerald Sargent of Slabjack Geotechnical.  Jerald has over 30 years of experience in the slabjacking and geo-technical industry. If you’d like to listen to the complete conversation, an audio version of the podcast is posted at the bottom of the article.

In this podcast we talk about the use of single and plural component foams for seawall repairs. 

Both foam types have their place in seawall repair but the contractor needs to have a good understanding of their respective characteristics and area of application.

Single component (accelerator activated) foams offer outstanding crack sealing and good soil penetrating, permeation and soil aggregate stabilizing properties.

Plural component foams are excellent void fillers, support and lifter foams, predominantly used for slabjacking and slab lifting.

Single Component Foams are Preferred for Soil Permeation and Soil Consolidation — Plural Component Foams are Good for Filling Voids in Certain Applications

In the following Jerald discusses the use and limitations of Plural Component Foam.

Jerald Sargent: …Sometimes plural components make a lot of sense… where there’s obvious gaps behind the wall or maybe in a you know in a big boulder type of Bulkhead where they just use big rock rather than poured concrete. So plural components are good for filling voids in there and helping to lock  [larger] aggregate together…

In most poured concrete walls we stay away from plural component simply because of the risks associated with it.

Going right along with that, one of the things that plural component is not appropriate for is injecting underneath the walls…

There’s virtually no permeation [into the soil] involved with plural component polyurethanes. It’ll [the soil] take up, it’ll absorb a little bit push through a little bit of that but it will not do it to the point where you have a solid structure built below the wall itself.

And I think that it is really important to understand the real limitation of the plural component polyurethane. And we use hundreds of thousands of pounds of a year in our slapjack in operation.

But it really isn’t appropriate in most cases to do a poured concrete wall [soil] stabilization.

To learn more about seawall repair and single and plural component foams you may want to listen to the podcast below.

Or just call us directly at 714-662-4445.

Seawall Repair with Polyurethane Foam

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