1

Module 44/ Topic 44

THE ROLE OF DRILLING MUD IN GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING

44.1What is drilling mud ?

Drilling mud is a thin slurry of clay in water.A special clay called bentonite,
characterised by its thixotropic (gelling) property, which is commercially available in
quantity, is used for this purpose. How such a humble material has all but revolutionsed
the practice of modern geotechnical engineering is little known to professional
geotechnical engineers themselves, not to speak of the lay public.

44.2Stabilising action of drilling mud

Sides of bore holes, such as for constructing bored piles, and trenches, such as for
contructing diaphragm walls, can cave in or slough in if left unsupported (Fig.44.1). This
problem is particularly acute in the case of dry cohesionless soils such as gravel, sand
and silt, whose major shear strength parameter is the angle of internal friction, with an
occasional trace of cohesion c real or apparent - notwithstanding. The caving in, if
allowed, will initiate a chain action resulting in the entire excavation getting filled up with
soil from the sides (Fig.44.2). In the absence of physical supports, like casing pipes used
in bore holes, construction is impossible in such bore holes and trenches.

44.3 The mechanics of stabilisation with thin bentonite slurry

If water can stabilize bore holes which it can it simply means, water pressure
(hydrostatic pressure) is higher than earth pressure. This is a truism which even civil
engineers, who are not initiated in the comparatively modern discipline of geotechnical
engineering, will find it hard to accept, since, in the first look, water which is a liquid is
thinner than soil which has a thick solid phase; the difference is, while water has no shear
strength, soil has.
Water has a unit weight of 10 kN/m3 which is less than that of soil whose unit weight
depends on its state of compaction. Also water has zero values for and c because of
which it has no shear strength. Soil, on the other hand, has positive values of and
cwhich impart it shear strength; the higher the values of andc, the greater the shear
strength. Ironically this is the very reason why water is able to retain and stabilise soil.
Let us now take a look at earth pressure. Earth pressure has two limiting valuesactive
and passive (see Topic 4). Here we are concerned with the active value, which is the
lowest value of earth pressure which a soil can exert on an yielding support which tries to
retain it (Fig.44.3).

Let us now compare water pressurewith earth pressure(active for us) in quantitative
terms.
At any depth h(Fig.44.4), water pressure pw = w xh, where w is the unit weight of
water. We can therefore state pw = 10 h. At the same depth h, (active) earth pressure, pa
= xh x Ka, where is the unit weight of soil, and Ka, the coefficient of active earth
pressure. The latter decreases with the increasing values of in a cohesionless soil.
Assuming typical values such as 15 kN/m3 for and 30 0 for (for which Ka = 1/3), we
can write, pa = 15 x h x 1/3 = 5 h (Fig.44.4).
This shows that water pressure is of the order of twice the active earth pressure, and
hence its great potential in stabilising the sides of bore holes and trenches, to the extent
we can assume that it is the active earth pressure which is not resisted in an unsupported
bore hole the sides of which therefore cave in.
If the hydrostatic pressure exerted by water is a potential stabilising agent in soil, the
immediate question that comes up is, why add clay to it and make it a thin slurry which
we call drillling mud. This is because if we simply pour water into a bore hole for the
purpose of stabilising the sides, water will continuously seep into the side soil, needing
continuous replenishment, which makes it an impractical task as a means of stabilisation,
on a practical scale.

44.4The role of clay in water

The clay present in water performs an important function which is described below.
In granular soil, water from the slurry slowly escapes into the voids, leaving a thin
deposit of clay on the wall of the hole. This thin layer of clay is called filter skin (Fig.44.5).
It is highly impervious and prevents any further loss of slurry by seepage, the avoidance
of which is necessary in the interest of economy. So the stabilising action of drilling mud
takes place purely by exerting hydrostatic pressure on the sides of the sealed wall
something which water alone cnnot achieve. In boring through clay, if the soil is already
impermeable, the need for the formation of the filter skindoes not arise, even though the
stabilising action is purely one ofhydrostatic pressure.

44.5Methods of circulation of drilling mud

The drilling mud plays an additional role which is keeping the cuttings from the bore
hole in suspension as the boring work progresses. Here comes the gelling property of
the bentonite slurry into play thanks to which it keeps the soil cut from the bore holein
suspension even when the slurry is allowed to remain stationary (see Fig.44.5).

There are two methods by which the cut soil particles are removed from the bore hole
through the medium of thedrilling mud, and the drilling mud recycled and sent back to the
hole. These are the direct mud circulation method and thereverse mud circulationmethod.
In the direct method, the slurry is pumped into tubes to which is attached the chiselshaped boring tool through which it discharges under pressure into the bottom of the bore
hole. As a result, the earth loosened due to the repeated lifting and dropping action of the
chisel, mixes with the slurry and flushes out from the top of the bore hole where it is
collected in the first compartment of the bentonite tank, where the bored earth is allowed
to settle and the betonite slurryallowed to flow out into the next compartment, from where
it is pumped back into the tubes carrying the chisel (Fig.44.6). In the reverse method, the
bentoniteslurry is poured directly into the bore hole and the same mixed with the bored
earth is sucked through the tubes using centrifugal pumps (Fig.44.7). One may note that
while the loosened earth settles in the tank, the bentonite in the slurry does not.

44.6Concreting under mud

The bore holes have been drilled, and the trenches excavated, to enable construction
such as, say, a bored pile in the bore hole and a diaphragm wall in the trench. A legitimate
question that arises in the minds of laymen as well as engineers is how to concrete the
space filled with drilling mud after having lowered the reinforcement cage also through
the same mud.The question is, will not the concrete get contaminated with mud, and
further, how will it set in the presence of the mud. A further question is, assuming that
the concrete is free from contamination and that it sets, how will bond develop between
concrete and the surfaces of reinforcement coated with mud. Both the results that we
need, viz., uncontaminatedfresh concrete and clean surfaces of the reinforcement are
admirably achieved through a simple technique, viz. tremie concreting which is a well
known method for under-water concreting.
The tremie is nothing but a flexible pipe or hose fitted with a conical funnel or hopper
at the top (see Fig.44.8). It provides a facility for controlled pouring of fresh concrete to
reach targeted locations. In the present case the pipe is lowered into the bottom of the
bore hole through the drilling mud and concrete is allowed to fall through the pipe to reach
the bottom. If there is a gap between the tip of the pipe and the top of the fresh concreteas
it is discharged, the entire body of concrete below will getcontaminatedby mixing with the
mud. This is happily prevented by adhering to a simple principle, viz. ensuring the tip
remains always embedded in fresh concrete by a small distanceas the tremie rises with
the continuous pouring of concrete, through the entire process of concreting (Fig.44.8).
In other words, no gap is allowed to form between the tip of the pipe and the top of the
fresh concrete at any stage in the concreting process. This ensures that it is only the
concrete at the top which permanently remains in contact with the drilling mud which it
replaces as the concrete rises. This concrete which thus serves as a protective cover,

orplug over the fresh concrete below is removed when it reaches the surface after fully
displacing the drilling mud. The drilling mud which remains in contact with the surface of
the reinforcements is also displacedby this plug in the same manner as it rises in the hole
wiping the cage clean.
It is evident from the above that if the tip of the tremie pipe gets separated from the
fresh concrete below even occasionally, it spells doom for the work as it results in leaving
bad patches of concrete between fresh ones(Fig.44.9).

Conclusion
In matters such as the above, instead of entertaining doubts, the engineer must put in
an effort to learn the scientific principlesbehind the method, which by no means is difficult
to comprehend, and then observe the functioning of the technique, until he is fully satisfied
with it, particularly realising the fact that millions of cubic metres of reinforced concrete
have been constructed in this manner in subsurface works in practically every part of the
world.
The engineer, however, has the additional burden of convincing the client who will find
it hard, tinged with an element of suspicion, to accept the work being done in the presence
of mud. The latter might even think that there is an attempt to cheat him! (This author
recollects a similar instance of what he overheard at a bridge construction site where the
backfilling of the abutment was in progress using dry sand. One lay onlooker was
commenting to another that using such a loose material was a clear attempt to cheat (!)
when geotechnical engineers know for certain that it is the most suitable material for the
backfilling work (Sec.13.4).