Cutter Soil Mix (CSM) technology is the latest generation of soil mixing techniques which injects and mixes binding agents (generally cement) with the aid of water and air with in-situ soils to produce a final hardened product. Once cured, these mixed soils are capable of retaining soils and water for deep excavations, environmental cut-off walls or carrying structural loads from roads, embankments, tanks or other movement sensitive structures. The CSM system is ideally suited to granular soils but can also be constructed through clays and some lower quality rock.
In contrast to most cut-off or retention systems, the CSM technique mixes soils in-situ with cementations binders rather than excavating and replacing with concrete. This offers several environmental benefits by significantly reduced spoil and binding in-ground contaminants with cement thus reducing the propensity to leach into groundwater.
CSM piled walls are extremely cost effective as a retention solution as they provide a more efficient structural section than many conventional piled walls. Reducing cross sectional area means reduced wastage and cost. A significant reduction in the number of joints between panels also means that the propensity to leak through cold joints is reduced for CSM walls over traditional secant pile walls.