In any underground facilities especially tunnels, it is essential to seal the area against water ingress and leakage of reserved materials. Grouting is a common method used to seal rocks around tunnels, successful grouting reduces the duration and cost of the construction, guarantees better working environment and higher safety, minimizes the maintenance and most important decreases the corresponding environmental hazards significantly. Achieving a sufficient grout spread is one of the prerequisites for a successful and efficient sealing, the penetration of a grout is defined as the length of how far grout penetrates in the rock through fractures from a bore hole. Chemical grouts and cement-based grouts are the prevailing ones among the grouting materials. Despite the better penetrability of chemical grouts, they are unfavorable to use due to environmental hazards associated to them, whilst cement-based grouts are more convenient to use because of their low cost and low environmental impact.The major drawback with cement-based grouts is their limited ability to penetrate the very narrow fractures which is directly related to their filtration tendency which is defined as the tendency of cement grains to agglomerate and build an impermeable filter cake during the flow. Many previous studies investigated the factors that affect the filtration tendency. They drew different conclusions and suggested various methods to improve the penetrability of cement-based grouts.The mixing method is one of the factors that have a great influence on the penetrability of the grout. An effective mixing method improves the dispersion of cement particles in the mixture, thus the penetrability of the grout. As it is known from previous studies, the finer the cement particles the harder to disperse. Grouts based on micro-fine cement (< 30 μm) are essential for the development of grouts that can seal very narrow fractures (20-50) μm compared to (70-80) μm at the present.In this study, the dispersion efficiency of three different mixing methods was evaluated, a conventional lab dissolver equipped with 90-mm disk, a conventional lab dissolver equipped with R/S system and an ultrasound UP400St device. Two cement types, INJ30 and UF12, that are similar in chemical composition but differ in degree of milling were tested. Dispersion was tested with filter pump.The results showed that the conventional lab dissolver equipped with 90-mm disk is ineffective method. The conventional lab dissolver equipped with R/S system is a better method compared to the 90-mm disk but still not effective enough especially when it comes to grouts based on ultra-fine cement (UF12). The ultrasound dispersion is not only the best method between the three methods in comparison, but even more stable and reliable. The best result obtained was grout based on UF12 passing through the 54 μm filter. This could mean that fracture aperture down to 55 μm now can be sealed. This is a significant improvement but there is still a marginal for further improvements. In combination with the dispersion efficiency of different dispersion methods, the study investigated the effect of additives on dispersion in particular and penetrability in general. Results showed that additives do not directly contribute to better dispersion, but they are necessary for better spread since they affect the flow properties.

Polymer nanocomposites are promising materials for dielectrical use in high voltage applications and insulations. This work presents a study of nanocomposites based on poly(ethylene-co-butyl acrylate) with two different comonomer compositions and two different aluminium oxide nanoparticles. The nanoparticles were either untreated, or surface-treated with two different silanes, aminopropyl triethoxy silane and octyltriethoxy silane. The best level of dispersion was found for the polymer with 13 wt. % of butyl acrylate (EBA-13) whereas the low melt viscosity of the polymer with 28 wt. % of butyl acrylate (EBA-28) resulted in insufficient mixing with uneven dispersion as a result. Octyltriethoxy silane-treated particles were best dispersed in the polymer. The nanoparticles acted as nucleation agents in EBA-28, increasing the crystallization temperature by several degrees. Studies of the water uptake in the nanocomposite materials showed the effect of the enormous interfacial surfaces and great number of polar groups present on the nanoparticle surfaces. For the well-dispersed nanomaterials, the water sorption data could be modeled by a single Fickian equation, whereas materials that contained a sizeable fraction of large nanoparticle agglomerates showed a two stage sorption process, first a fast process associated with the saturation of the polymer phase and second, a slow diffusion process due to water sorption of large particle agglomerates. The long-term performance and interaction between the nanoparticles and the phenolic antioxidant (Irganox 1010) was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry in order to assess the oxidation induction time (OIT); the latter being proportional to the concentration of efficient antioxidant. It was found that the stabilizer was adsorbed to the untreated Al2O3 nanoparticles, resulting in a significant reduction in OIT. However, silanization of the nanoparticles resulted in an increase in OIT, compared to the materials containing untreated particles. Furthermore, it was shown that the stabilizer was not irreversibly adsorbed to the particles, allowing a gradual release of stabilizer with ageing time. / Polymera nanokompositer är lovande material för användning som dielektriskt material inom högspänningsområdet. I detta arbete studeras nanokompositer framställda av två olika sampolymerer av eten och butylakrylat (EBA-13 med 13 vikt% butylakrylat samt EBA-28 med 28 vikt% och två olika typer av nanopartiklar av Al2O3. Nanopartiklarna användes antingen som obehandlade eller efter silanisering med aminopropyltrietoxysilan- eller oktyltrietoxysilan. Den bästa partikeldispergeringen observerades för de material som baserats på EBA-13 medan den låga smältviskositeten hos EBA-28 resulterade i låga skjuvkrafter under kompounderingen och en observerat ojämn dispergering och förekomst av mikrometerstora agglomerat. Partiklar som silaniserats med oktyltrietoxysilan var lättast att dispergera. Nanopartiklarna fungerade som kärnbildare i EBA-28 vilket medförde en höjning av kristallisationstemperaturen. Vattensorptionsstudier demonstrerade dels effekten av den stora specifika gränsytan mellan partikel och matris och dels av förekomst av polära grupper lokaliserade till nämnda gränsyta. Kompositer med väldispergerade partiklar uppvisade en enkel Ficksk sorptionsprocess medan de material som innehöll en betydande mängd stora agglomerat påvisade en tvådelad process. Den första processen var kopplad till mättningen av polymermatrisen och den andra kunde länkas till vattenupptaget i de stora agglomeraten. Vidare undersöktes långtidsegenskaperna hos nanokompositerna, samt om det fanns någon växelverkan mellan nanopartiklar och en fenolbaserade antioxidant (Irganox 1010). DSC användes för att bestämma induktionstiden för oxidation (OIT) vilket är ett mått på koncentrationen av aktiv fenolisk antioxidant. Det framgick det att Irganox 1010 adsorberades på nanopartiklarna, vilket ledde till en minskning av OIT. Det framgick även att de material som innehöll silaniserade nanopartiklar hade högre OIT jämfört material med obehandlade partiklar. Antioxidanten var däremot inte irreversibelt bunden till nanopartiklarna, utan frigjordes från deras ytor och blev aktiv under åldringen. / QC 20110128