Tucker, Georgia – A polyurethane foam from Alchemy Polymers was used to level the floor at a 1100m2 cement manufacturing plant in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan that was being repurposed as an agricultural seed sorting facility.
Thousands of gallons of water had been pumped into the soil by an undetected broken water main on an adjoining property. This caused the 25 cm-thick concrete floors of the 1960s building to sink by up to 17 cm. The seed sorting equipment could not be installed until the floor had been levelled.
Plans to demolish and replace the large slabs, which were up to 16x7.5 m in size, failed as they proved too tough for a track-hoe-mounted jackhammer to break up. An attempt to lift the slabs by mudjackers using cement grout also failed, Alchemy said.
The answer lay in the use of Alchemy’s AP Lift 440. The 4 lb/cu ft (67 kg/m3) density, high strength, hydro-insensitive structural polyurethane foam is designed to lift and support heavy concrete floors that have settled after water infiltration.
Five slabs were lifted, and three more were fine-tuned. In all, 400 tonnes of sunken slabs using 1200-gal (4542 l) of AP Lift 440, and the process took less than a week. The heavy seed-sorting equipment could then be installed in time for the harvest, and remained level, Alchemy said.
