Washout
Washout turns up in 2 fields: concrete, mining. Here is what it means to the people in each one.
Washout in concrete
Rinsing concrete residue from a truck's chutes and hopper, and the contained pit where that wash water goes.
After discharging, drivers rinse the chutes and hopper before the residue hardens, and the drum itself is rinsed or reclaimed back at the plant. The wash water is strongly alkaline, with a pH around 12, so site rules and stormwater permits require it to go into a lined pit, a portable washout bin or back into the drum, never onto the ground or into a storm drain.
"Washout's the lined pit by the gate, don't let me catch anybody rinsing chutes into the street again."
Washout in mining
A channel in a coal seam or orebody where the original deposit was eroded and replaced by barren sediment.
A geological feature where an ancient stream eroded a channel through a peat bog or mineral deposit before it fully lithified, later filling it with sand or mud. In underground coal mining, encountering a washout means the seam abruptly ends in solid rock. Miners must then drill and blast through the barren zone to pick up the coal on the other side.
"The longwall face is going to be down for weeks because we drove right into a massive sandstone washout."