Electro-Osmotic Pulse (EOP) Technology for Control of Water Seepage in Concrete Structures
(Technical Report - PDF - 7.1 MB)

Abstract: In older buildings, such as those common on U.S. Army installations, severe damp-basement problems can increase maintenance re-quirements and make affected areas uninhabitable or even unusable. In problem areas, the usual approach to solve groundwater intru-sion problems is to excavate to expose the wall area and the base of the foundation ("trench") and then to replace dampproofing on the wall surface and to install a drain tile system around the building or affected area ("drain").

A commercial system that uses electro-osmotic pulse (EOP) technology within concrete structures offers an alternative to the trench-and-drain approach that can mitigate water-related problems from the interior (negative side) of affected areas without the cost of ex-cavation. EOP technology is designed to extend the life of conventional repair methods. In basic terms, the EOP system uses pulses of electricity to reverse the flow of water seepage, actually causing moisture to flow out of the basement walls, away from the building. This study demonstrated and validated EOP technology by performing laboratory and field tests of a commercially available EOP sys-tem at selected Army installations, and by comparing the results of those test with the results of conventional dampness mitigation techniques.

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