ABSTRACT
Injection is a geotechnical method that allows the consolidation and/or the sealing of sandy porous media. For a successful treatment by injection, the parameters have to be well chosen. In this paper, a discrete numerical modeling of this discrete phenomenon is proposed. The numerical code used, Particle Flow Code in 3 Dimensions (PFC3D ), made it possible to represent each soil and cement grain separately, so that the void matrix of the sample and the cement grains blocking front of a small passage are well taken into account. The injection process is expressed through drag forces applied by the suspension fluid on cement particles. The simulations show whether the injection of a given cement grout in a given sand sample presents a high or a low filtration. Results obtained by the numerical simulations are compared qualitatively and quantitatively to the experimental ones. The discrete element method and specially the particle flow code are found to be well adapted to the grouting process modeling.
