Custom Design

Titanium Piezometers and Pressure Cells

These instruments were required to monitor the behavior of bentonite seals surrounding nuclear waste in an underground waste repository. Given the aggressive nature of the environment at the site (saline groundwater), and the operating life expectancy of the monitoring instrumentation (50+ years), vibrating wire instruments were the instruments of choice, but concerns regarding the longevity required that the sensors be constructed entirely from titanium, a metal with excellent corrosion resistance.

Titanium’s corrosion resistance is due to a protective, stable and strongly adherent oxide film, which is very durable and only attacked by a few substances. Titanium is capable of healing this film almost instantly, in any environment, where a trace of moisture or oxygen is present.

Other uses for piezometers constructed from titanium include monitoring of pore pressures in highly alkaline mine tailings and sludge lagoons.