State-of-the-Art Report - Plastic Concrete for Cut-Off Walls

Plastic Concrete plays a key role in the remediation of earthen dams using cut-off walls to counter dam seepage. However, Plastic Concrete has yet to be thoroughly understood, since little attention has been given to this material in literature. The principal objective of this report is to set out the fundamental material science parameters, which describe Plastic Concrete’s mechanical and hydraulic behaviour as well as describing the mix design and application of Plastic Concrete. For this, an extensive and comprehensive literature review was carried out. The results show that Plastic Concrete can hereby be considered to be a low-strength, low-stiffness impervious concrete with a high deformation capacity under load and the capability of sustaining larger strains than normal concrete. This study further identifies reference values, which may be used in cut-off wall design. All in all, the research results represent a further step towards the understanding of Plastic Concrete material behaviour.