SoluForm’s preformed concrete bagwork can be used below water. It has biodegradable potato starch liners that allow dry mix concrete to be placed below water in a clean and environmentally acceptable manner.

Prefilled bagwork needs water to hydrate the concrete. The bags are pierced with steel rebar pins to create a pathway for the surrounding water to enter and disperse around the concrete.

Tight packaging between the bags ensures there is no loss of cement fines from the bag when they are vertically pierced.

Hydration and hardening typically takes around 6-12 hours.

Steel rebar pins can also be used to tie blockwork to other structures, like abutments or retaining walls.

Applications

  • Structural underpinning of abutments and training walls subject to scour

  • Formation of scour protection within watercourses

  • Creation of pipe, culvert or bridge headwalls and training walls

  • Formation of river walls, including repairs to existing walls

  • Creation of SUDS schemes, to create storage lagoons, etc

  • Earthwork retention

  • Embankment stabilisation works

Features and benefits

  • Simple to use - no specialist skills required

  • Cost-effective means of placing concrete underwater

  • Environmentally safe - no mixing or pumping of material within the river takes place, so placement is inherently safer for the watercourse

  • Liners biodegrade along with the hessian outer bags to leave the concrete block

  • Underwater liners and bags are manufactured from natural, renewable and sustainable resources

  • Biodegradable potato starch liner

  • Design mix options available

  • Highly adaptable system

Credentials

  • EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) certified by BRE

  • Carbon Offsetting

Installation procedure

  • Each bag placed flat and built up in rows, typically alternating or cross bonding to improve the strength of the finished blockwork.

  • After the second or third row of bags, steel rebar pins are used to provide a pathway for water to enter and hydrate the concrete, and to tie all the finished blockwork together.

  • Standard 300mm steelwork pins are inserted every two rows of bagwork, piercing 3 rows with a single 300mm pin.

Design Guidance

Soluform have a number of standard concrete bagwork wall designs for both in-water and non river applications. These are backed up with design calculations, risk assessments and design check statements and can be supplied upon request.