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Behaviour and Analysis of Geotextile Used On Very Soft Soil
Behaviour and Analysis of Geotextile Used On Very Soft Soil
A BS TRA CT
1 INTRODUCTION
In filling operations, involving the spreading of suitable fill over very poor
clay ground to assure construction equipment trafficability, some geo-
textiles, such as plastic meshes, woven fabrics or a combination of woven
fabrics and rope, are being used to increase the bearing capacity of soft
ground and decrease sinking of the fill into the ground. This construction
m e t h o d is based on the principle of utilizing the tensile strengths of the
geotextiles used. Some analytical methods for determining bearing
capacity, taking into consideration the tensile strength of the geotextiles,
179
Geotextiles and Geomembranes 0266-1144/86/$03-50O Elsevier Applied SciencePublishers
Ltd, England, 1986. Printed in Great Britain
18o Y. Watari, Y. Higuchi
fy~~~ Yf
Fig. !. Membrane surface expression.
Equilibrium equation
~2 ~2
H~.-v-v(Z+w)+Hy.-Z---v(z+w)-p = 0 (2)
ox- oy-
Elasticity law
Hy -
Evtv [ _ f / y i ~ : z . ,
2S,?..~ly
lf6' (/j~v')'dy]
-~v w ° ) '}- 2 o .
TABLE 1
Soft Mud Characteristics (Surface Depth 1.5 m)
Water Content' W % (A ,= )
Cohesion Cu kPa(o,)
0( 2 4 6 8 10
o~e
oo~ • ~
~oo4 ds~
oO~
o ~ o
E 1.0 ~ o--.oc ~
o odb • OA :
N °io~,.A ~ Survey |
t'-
) ~ ! e&:
=. Survey 2
4a &Acco • De
C3
2.0
o ~G,e
0 I~OSt
e ~
.~ OlOOm
oe~,
Oe~ •
(30 Oe
oo 0
0 0 0 •
3.0 C ;3[;--
O0 0
CO 0
L~
TRANSVERSE L
;2
.to
DIRECTION OF
WOVEN FABRICS /
. ROPE
v
_z
p-
_~10
U3 / j' LONGITUDINAL
z / f" DIRECTIONOF
I,LI
P //7 WOVEN FABRICS
u~
g0 10 2O
.STRAIN ( "1o )
the above woven fabrics and ropes. Although there is a slight difference in
the longitudinal and transverse load/strain characteristics of the woven
fabric, the fabric is isotropic for all practical purposes. The reinforcing
ropes, which have a rupture strength and strain of 23.4 kN and 24%
respectively, were placed on the woven fabric at 60 cm centers.
3.3 Banking method and measuring the deformation of the woven fabric
O n e meter of fill was spread evenly around the perimeter of the reclaimed
area and stabilized once the entire thickness sank into the soft clay (Fig. 4).
The deformation of the woven fabric was determined in the vicinity of the
fill where the soft clay pushed up the woven fabric. Deformations were
184 Y. Watari, Y. Higuchi
measured by setting a horizontal datum line above the fabric and measur-
ing the vertical distance from the line to the surface of the fabric. The
correct deformation of the fabric (w) was obtained by allowing for the
overall slope of the fabric.
4 C O M P A R I S O N OF O B S E R V E D AND A N A L Y T I C A L
DEFORMATIONS
The push-up load (p), for the fabric, to be used in analysis was calculated
on the assumption that the balance between the fill load and the ground is
d e t e r m i n e d by the difference in the effective pressure before and after
filling at the depth where the fill sank into the ground. The vertical
effective pressure (p~) at the bottom of the fill can then be calculated using
the following expression:
where y'at is the saturated unit weight of fill, D is the depth of the sunk fill,
y" is the unit weight of water.
Behavior and analysis of geotextiles used for earthfiUing works 185
pl = p { - p ~ = 7.45kPa
On the other hand, the ultimate undrained bearing capacity of the
ground can be taken as q~, = 6.86 kPa by substituting the mean undrained
shear strength, Cu = 1.76 kPa at a depth of 1.0 m, in the beating capacity
equation, q~ = (2/3)CuN', suggested by Terzaghi for local shearing failure
of a continuous footing. The difference between the ultimate bearing
capacity of the ground and the above increase in pressure (p) is given by:
515t o • OBSERVED
ANALYZED
Z /
o |0 . kPa
DISTANCE cm
Figure 6 illustrates the variation in the tension of the fabric with various
loads on the fabrics (p) and rope spacing based on the same assumptions as
in Section 4.2. It is clear from Fig. 6 that, since the minimum practicable
rope spacing is about 50 cm, the allowable upper limit of the push-up force
for the fabric (bearing capacity deficit) is about 5 kPa when employing
fabric which in this case had a tensile strength in the range 1.37-1.57 kN/5
cm (27-4-31.4 kN/m). Since it is possible, to some extent, to control the
tensile force induced in the fabric by varying the rope spacing, in this case
for a push-up force not greater than 5 kPa, an assessment can be made of
required material properties.
For the push-up force p = 2.45 kPa, obtained from direct observation
and analysis, a safety factor (Fs) of 2.0 against tensile failure is assured,
assuming that the tensile force induced in the fabric may increase by as
much as 30% due to the theoretical rope spacing of 60 cm increasing to as
much as 75 cm in practice. An overall analysis for the entire fill area can be
achieved using membrane theory with the tension in the ropes and the
Behavior and analysis of geotextiles used for earth filling works 187
o.s ¢
!0.t;/ f f
50 60 70 80 90 10D
ROPE lNTERVALS cm
5 CONCLUSIONS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
REFERENCES
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103-15.
4. Society of Steel Construction of Japan, Design and Examples for Space
Structure. Kajima Publication Association, Tokyo (1971), pp. 185-7.
5. Kawaguchi, M. and Chin, Y., On nonlinearity of prestressed suspension roofs.
Rep. Tech. Coll. Hosei Univ., No. 17 (1968).
6. Tsuboi, Y., Kawaguchi, M., Nakata, K. and Chin, Y., Analysis for flat and
dual pneumatic membrane structure. Proc. Ann. Meeting AIJ (1970) 607-8.