While it is possible to measure the permeability of dense conventional castables with this test method, it is not possible to obtain flow measurements on many advanced castable types due to the amount of fine particles used in their formulation and the effect of the ordered particle packing systems employed.
These advanced castables do have permeability, but it is below the limit that can be measured by the ASTM test.
A recently developed technique and associated apparatus to measure the low permeability
of advanced castable systems, called the vacuum decay method, has been developed and is being used to model dewatering behavior of these materials at the university research level (19).