TUFCON System: The Dawn of Technology for Reconnecting Soil (December 2008)

TUFCON System: The Dawn of Technology for Reconnecting Soil (December 2008)
The TUFCON System is a soil improvement technology that converts highly cohesive soil generated in large quantities at construction sites into a material that is easy to handle and has stable strength. In the late 2000s, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's policy to promote the reuse of construction by-products and the tightening of the Waste Disposal and Public Cleansing Law created a need for technology to recycle and reuse soil onsite. The period around 2008 was a turning point for the advancement of soil improvement technology, especially as public construction costs were curtailed and disposal sites became increasingly tight.
The core of the TUFCON system is the ability to uniformly mix solidifiers into cohesive soil to ensure handling and strength in a short time. After solidification, the material has stable compressive strength and can be used for a wide range of applications, such as roadbed materials for road construction and temporary materials for embankments and harbors in construction sites. Unlike conventional cohesive soil treatment, it is not easily affected by fluctuations in water content, making construction management easier. The quality of the material is highly uniform because the construction machine can monitor the mixing state and degree of mixing in real time.
The importance of improving cohesive soil has been pointed out on the Internet in materials related to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's construction byproduct recycling plan. In particular, the 2008 edition of "Technology Trends" drew attention to the solidification system treatment as one of a group of technologies to promote the reuse of soil generated onsite. The system was highly evaluated for its environmental and economic benefits, such as reducing CO2 emissions by reducing the number of vehicles used for transport, decreasing dependence on landfills, and reducing the burden on residents in the surrounding area.
The TUFCON system is a technology that realizes soil recycling, which was born from a combination of social demand and technological innovation during a period of increased redevelopment work in urban areas. This technology has transformed clay, which had been generated in large quantities but had been difficult to handle, into a resource that can be used again as a construction material to support the future of construction sites.