Influence of the filling process on the behaviour of geotextile tubes

Abstract

Geotextile tubes can be used to dewater materials such as sludge, sediments or residues aiming at reducing their moisture contents to acceptable levels. The tube filling process can be carried out using one or several filling stages, and the number of stages can influence the tube behaviour in terms of dewatering rate, final shape and geotextile strains, for instance. In this research, laboratory tests were carried out on nonwoven geotextile tubes for the dewatering of a fine-grained material using different numbers of filling stages. The behaviour of the tube was monitored by instrumentation to assess tube geometry, pore pressures, total stresses at the tube base, geotextile strains and retention capacity. Evaluations of the accuracy of some available methods for the prediction of tube behaviour were also made. The results obtained showed that the increase in the number of filling stages resulted in larger final tube height, volume, geotextile strains as well as larger diameters of the soil particles that piped through the geotextile. Predictions of tube behaviour by available methods showed varying degrees of accuracy depending on the tube parameter considered.

Cyclic Fatigue Durability of Woven Geotextiles for Use in Sustainable Waste-Dewatering Systems

“…The literature reports that WCSs are designed to receive more than one pumping cycle and subsequent dewatering to achieve final consolidation. Dewatering and volume reduction are awaited between the pumping cycles carried out until the consolidation phase is reached [41]. The number of pumping cycles depends on different parameters, such as the volumetric capacity of the geotextile tubes, the geotextile tensile strength, and the seams' efficiency [15,18,29,42].…”