4. CONCLUSIONS
Applicability of bentonite as GIM has been investigated in detail in this report.
The results of several experiments conducted on both sodium and calcium bentonite confirmed that sodium bentonite indeed is better than calcium bentonite in terms of functionality as GIM.
However, these experiments should be replicated in real grounding system installation, in order to further verify the conclusions. Several issues of using bentonite as GIM have also been discussed with critical analysis.
Future application of bentonite as backfill material should take into account such issues.
An innovative experiment on introducing bentonite into concrete mixture to encase steel cage was presented and 30% bentonite ratio is a promising grounding improvement material which will be further verified through future studies.