Proceedings of the Institution of

Civil Engineers
Ground Improvement 161
February 2008 Issue GI1
Pages 43–49
doi: 10.1680/grim.2008.161.1.43

Paper 700029
Received 23/07/2006
Accepted 15/08/2007
Keywords: embankments/
geotechnical engineering/
geotextiles, membranes & geogrids
K. S. Beena
Reader in Civil Engineering,
School of Engineering,
Cochin University of Science
and Technology, Kochi, India
K. K. Babu
Research Scholar, School of
Engineering, Cochin
University of Science and
Technology, Kochi, India

Testing coir geotextile drains for soft ground improvement

K. S. Beena M.Tech, PhD and K. K. Babu ME

The results of an experimental investigation to explore Transmittivity The product of water permeability along the
the effectiveness of coir geotextile vertical drains for geotextile plane and thickness of the
ground improvement are reported. The time settlement geotextile.
behaviour of clayey soil, as influenced by coir geotextile Warp Set of yarns running length-wise of a fabric
drains, is summarised and the construction and Weft Set of yarns running width-wise of a fabric
installation details are also discussed. Two types of coir Wide width Uniaxial test in which entire width of a
drains, a circular type and a rectangular type, using two tensile strength 200 mm wide specimen is gripped in clamps
varieties of coir geotextiles were tested in three to ensure a gauge length of 100 mm with a
configurations, namely a single drain and triangular and strain rate of 10 mm/min.
rectangular patterns. It was observed that the time for
consolidation was very much reduced due to the
installation of coir drains irrespective of the type of coir 1. INTRODUCTION
geotextile used, type of coir drain and the layout of the The rapid increase in population and associated development
drains. Furthermore, in addition to ease of construction activities has resulted in the scarcity of good sites for
these drains are eco-friendly and will not pose any construction. The activities are now forced to concentrate in
environmental problems. lowland areas having very low strength and high
compressibility. Thus it is essential to modify the soft soil
before commencing construction activities, to prevent undue
settlement and in turn, failure—both functional and
NOTATION structural. Ground improvement techniques can play a vital
Cross machine Direction of the geosynthetic in a direction role in solving many geotechnical problems encountered
direction perpendicular to its long manufacturing or during the implementation of any infrastructure development
machine direction. project.
Ends The threads, which lie along the length of
woven fabric. Of the various forms of ground improvement techniques
Machine Direction of the geosynthetic in a direction of available, pre-loading is the most successful one. The main
direction its long manufacturing. disadvantage of this method is that the time required for
Permittivity The amount of water moving across a consolidation is very long and also the surcharge load required
geotextile in unit time through unit area at is significantly high. In many cases, to keep pace with the
unit head. speed of construction activities, pre-loading may not be always
Picks Weft or filling yarn, which lies across the a viable solution. In such cases, the presence of a vertical drain
length of a fabric. can greatly reduce the pre-loading period. The installation of
Runnage Length of the yarn in metres to weigh 1 kg. vertical drains leads to a reduction of the length of the
Scorage It is the indication of thickness or thinness of drainage path in a radial direction. As the consolidation time is
yarn. It is the number of strands that can be inversely proportional to the square of the length of the
accommodated in a span of 900 mm (36 in.) drainage path, the period of loading required to achieve
without overlapping divided by 20. stabilisation in soft soil is considerably reduced.
Secant The ratio of change in load per unit width to
modulus a stated value of strain, usually 10% More than 140 million metres of prefabricated vertical drains
Strip tensile Uniaxial test in which entire width of a have been installed as part of the soil improvement work for
strength 50 mm wide specimen is gripped in clamps to the Changi East land reclamation project in Singapore. Chu et
ensure a gauge length of 200 mm with a al.1 described the factors controlling the selection of
strain rate of 10 mm/min. prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs), the quality control testing
Tenacity The fibre strength as force per linear density for them, selection of design parameters, adaptability of some
Tex This is the universal unit for yarn count; it is of the design criteria, smear effect etc., based on the Changi
the weight in grams per kilometre of yarn experience.

Ground Improvement 161 Issue GI1 Testing coir geotextile drains for soft ground improvement Beena • Babu 43

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 Most of the PVDs used for ground improvement applications
are of the polymeric type. The main disadvantage of the
polymeric type of drains is that the capacity may be effectively
surplus to requirements. In such situations, deliberate and
designed use of geosynthetic, which has a predictable reduction
in capacity with time, is a good engineering solution. 2 Li and
Rowe3 discussed the advantages of the combined use of both
PVDs and geosynthetics reinforcements in embankments. Based
on model tests, Fang and Yin4 reported the variations in
delayed pore water pressure under a constant pressure during
the loading and unloading stages. Bo5 developed a single basic
equation to obtain the required average discharge capacity and
it was found that the required discharge capacity is of the order
of 10 6 m/s for a 100 mm width drain. Hawlader et al.6
conducted a parametric study to identify the influence of
viscosity and smear on the consolidation process of clays with
vertical drains. Design charts for determining drain spacing are
described by Zhu and Yin.7
The increasing application of geosynthetics, however, has the
disadvantage of high cost and the material is petroleum based
and is not eco-friendly. 8 The increasing environmental
awareness and sustainability, together with the high cost of
petroleum products, are causing the developing countries to
investigate the possible utilisation of substitutes made from
natural products.
Coir is an abundantly available and renewable resource, which
is more durable than jute as it has a higher content of lignin.
Under water, coir has been shown to retain its strength for
about eight to ten years. Although the survivability concept is
more important in the case of geotextile functions, studies
indicate that, in most of the separation applications, the critical
period in the life of a geotextile is during construction rather
than during service life. 9 Usually, if the geotextile survives the
construction-induced stresses, it will also withstand the in-
service stresses. With regard to natural geotextiles, durability is
not a matter of concern where a short service life is required, as
in the case of drainage for consolidation of soft compressible
deposits. 10 The greatest advantages of coir geotextile are its
availability, economic price range, and eco compatibility. It can
be tailor-made to match the end users’ technical requirements
in terms of porometry, permittivity, strength, etc. 11
The uses of coir geotextiles in improving the bearing capacity
and other strength aspects of soil are well established. 12–14
However, the effect of coir in stabilising the clay stratum
through the acceleration of
consolidation has been little
studied. In this paper the Physical properties
effectiveness of vertical
drains using a natural Density
geotextile, namely coir Tenacity
Breaking elongation
geotextile, is discussed,
Moisture regain at 65% relative humidity
based on an extensive Swelling (diameter) in water
research programme. Two Specific gravity
types of drains made of two Porosity
varieties of coir geotextiles, Young’s modulus
which had different mesh
* Source: Rao and Balan. 11
sizes and densities, were
studied in different Table 1. Properties of coir fibre*
configurations.
44 Ground Improvement 161 Issue GI1 Testing coir geotextile drains for soft ground improvement
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2. PREFABRICATED VERTICAL DRAINS USING COIR
GEOTEXTILES
2.1. Coir geotextiles
Coir, a ‘generic’ member of the geosynthetics family, is made
from coconut fibres extracted from the husk of coconut fruit. Coir
is a hard and tough fibre with a length of 150–280 mm and
diameter varying between 0.1 to 0.5 mm. It is a multi-cellular
fibre containing 30 to 300 or more cells in its total cross-section,
which is polygonal to round in shape. The properties of coir fibre
are given in Table 1. Coir geotextiles are manufactured by a series
of processes, namely retting, spinning and weaving. They are of
woven and non-woven type. Non-woven coir geotextiles are
made directly from the fibre without it first being spun into yarn.
Woven coir geotextiles are manufactured from four types of coir
yarn made from white coir. Two varieties of woven coir
geotextiles designated as H2M6 and H2M8 were used for the
present experimental work. The properties of the coir geotextiles
were determined in the laboratory as per BS specifications 15 and
are tabulated in Table 2.
2.2. Preparation of drains
Two types of coir geotextile drains were suggested for the
present investigation. One was of circular type and the other
was of rectangular type. The circular drains were made by
wrapping the coir geotextiles twice over a rigid polyvinyl
chloride (PVC) pipe, diameter 50.8 mm, which is withdrawn
after installation. To keep the geotextiles in position it was tied
with very thin binding wires at 200–250 mm intervals. For
easy penetration of drains a perforated metallic cone was used.
To make a rectangular type of drain, three wooden reapers with
dimensions 200 mm 3 100 mm, made from bamboo strips or
waste wood cuttings, were placed with a 20 mm clear gap
between them. This was glued to the coir geotextiles and
wrapped around in four layers. The ends were glued to avoid
separation. A perforated metallic V-shaped shoe was placed at
the ends at the time of installation to facilitate easy penetration.
The cross-sections of the drains are shown in Fig. 1.
3. TEST PROGRAMME
The experimental work aimed to find the reduction in the
consolidation settlement time due to the provision of coir
geotextile drains in loose and sensitive soils. Although not
impossible, it is very difficult to conduct tests in the field due
to the difficulty in mobilising the equipment and also taking
readings continuously. To bypass these difficulties and to have
Chemical properties
1400 kg/m3 Water soluble 5.25%
0.1 N/tex Pectin and related compounds 3.30%
30% Hemi cellulose 0.25%
10.5% Cellulose 43.44%
5% Lignin 45.84%
1.15 Others 1.92%
40%
4.5 GN/m2
Beena • Babu
 Property H2M6 H2M8

Mass/unit area: g/m2 365 690

Thickness at 2 kPa: mm 7.03 7.47
Mesh opening (mm 3 mm) 20 3 20 7 3 10
Warp 3 weft/decimetre 4.5 3 4.5 10 3 7
Yarn runnage: m/kg 210 220
Ends per decimetre 4.6 11
Picks per decimetre 4 7
Puncture resistance: N 440 500
Strip tensile strength (machine direction): kN/m 5.0 17.8
Strip tensile strength (cross machine direction): kN/m 4.8 12.8
Wide tensile strength (machine direction): kN/m 5.6 16.0
Wide tensile strength (cross machine direction): kN/m 5.6 12.8
Secant modulus (wide strip): kN/m 15.0 64.00

Table 2. Properties of coir geotextiles used

10 mm Property Value
20 mm 20 mm 20 mm 20 mm 20 mm

Soil type CL
Specific gravity 2.72
Coir geotextile
Coir geotextile Free swell index 8.25%
Liquid limit 34%
Wooden reaper Plasticity index 12%
20 mm ⫻ 10 mm Shrinkage limit 18%
section 50·8 mm Æ
Table 3. Properties of soil used

the load evenly over the entire surface. A surcharge load was
applied in order to produce a pressure of 10 kPa. The load was
applied with the help of a winch.
(a) (b)

Settlement measurements at varying time intervals were made

Fig. 1. Cross-section (plan) of coir geotextile vertical drains:
(a) rectangular; (b) circular with the help of four digital displacement sensors having
sensitivity of 0.01 mm and the average value was taken.
Details of the test set-up are shown in Fig. 2.
controlled conditions, experiments were performed in a steel
test tank with plan dimensions 650 mm 3 650 mm and depth
3.1. Installation of vertical drains
850 mm, which was fabricated for the purpose in the
To install the circular-type vertical drains, the metallic cone was
laboratory. The inside of the tank was well painted and oiled in
first placed in the required position and the drain, wrapped over
order to avoid wall friction. Furthermore, it was assumed that
PVC pipes, was held in a vertical position over it. The drains were
the friction between the wall and the soil would not have any
pressed into the soil to the required depth. After reaching the
influence on the consolidation properties of the soil.
required depth, rice husk was added to the PVC pipe for some

The soil used for the investigation was low compressible clay
(CL) with high silt content procured from the Marad area in Loading arrangement
Cochin, India. The properties of soil were determined in the
LVDT
laboratory and are summarised in Table 3. The soil was soaked
in water for three to five days and made into a thick slurry Perforated steel plate 38 mm thick
form. The slurry was transferred into the tank in small
Coir geotextile
quantities and was stirred well to remove the entrapped air to
Perforated steel plate 5 mm thick
the maximum possible degree. This was continued until the
Filter paper
tank was filled to a depth of 750 mm. Three days rest period
Coir geotextile drain
was given before commencing the experiment, so that the
slurry formed a natural state of stability. Rice husk
Soil
Mild steel tank
After installing the drains in the desired configuration, the
650 mm ⫻ 650 mm ⫻ 850 mm
surface was levelled and a filter paper was placed over it to
cover the entire area. A perforated steel plate, 5 mm thick, was 650 mm
placed above this and two layers of coir geotextiles were then
placed on top of this to act as a drainage blanket. Finally a Fig. 2. Details of test set-up
perforated metallic plate, 38 mm thick, was placed to distribute

Ground Improvement 161 Issue GI1 Testing coir geotextile drains for soft ground improvement Beena • Babu 45

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 depth and simultaneously the pipe was slowly withdrawn for that
depth. During field installations, this can be done using a chute.
Fig. 3 explains the sequence of installation for the circular
vertical drains. In the case of the rectangular type of drains the
V-shaped shoe was placed over the soil surface. The drain was
placed centrally in the groove and pressed to the required depth
in stages as explained in Fig. 4. As there was no withdrawal of the
casing pipe and filling of the drains, the installation of the
rectangular drain was found to be simpler.
Initially the settlement characteristics were studied without
using the coir drains. Then the experiments were repeated with
one drain at the centre, three drains in a triangular pattern and
four drains in a rectangular pattern. Both types of drain,
namely circular and rectangular, were used for the study. The
layout of drains is shown in Fig. 5.
After conducting the tests the soil surrounding the drains was
removed and it was observed that the rectangular drains
remained intact after loading, whereas the circular drain
showed the formation of a minor kink. No other damage was
observed after the test.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The effectiveness of coir geotextile vertical drains in reducing
the time of settlement was studied in this experimental
research programme. Two types of vertical drain, namely
circular and rectangular, made of two varieties of woven coir
geotextiles and positioned in three different configurations,
were examined. A total of 13 experiments were conducted and
primary consolidation settlement measurements were taken
under an applied pressure of 10 kPa. The performance of these
vertical drains in terms of percentage increase in settlement for
a specified duration and percentage reduction in time for a
specified settlement is summarised in Table 4.
Rice husk
Ground surface
1 2
3 4 5 Another reason which favoured the circular type may be that
Fig. 3. Sequence of installation of circular drains: 1, placing the
metallic cone shoe at the surface; 2, placing the coir textile
drain wrapped around PVC pipe centrally over it; 3, pressing
the drain to the required depth; 4, releasing the PVC pipe and
simultaneously adding rice husk; 5, completed circular coir
geotextile drain
46 Ground Improvement 161 Issue GI1 Testing coir geotextile drains for soft ground improvement
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Ground surface
1 2
3
4
Fig. 4. Sequence of installation of rectangular drains: 1, placing
the metallic V notch over the soil surface; 2, placing the
rectangular drain over it; 3, pressing the drain to the required
depth; 4, completed rectangular coir geotextile drain
4.1. Type of drain
Two types of drain were considered, one having a circular
cross-section and other a rectangular cross-section. For the
circular type the central core pipe was withdrawn during
installation whereas, in the case of rectangular drains, the full
section was driven into the ground. Fig. 6 shows the
comparison of the time settlement behaviour for a typical case
with one drain at the centre. Here it can be seen that the time
taken to attain a particular settlement for soil with coir
geotextile PVDs was much less than soil alone. A reduction of
around 70% in time to attain 10 mm settlement was observed
when a circular drain was placed in the soil, whereas a
reduction in time of 43% was shown when the rectangular type
of drain was used. A similar trend was observed when the
numbers of drains was changed to three and four. The rate of
consolidation settlement increased considerably with the
provision of coir drains, and was greater for circular drains in
comparison with the rectangular drains. During 48 h the
settlement was increased by 68–73% by using the circular
drains whereas the corresponding increase when using
rectangular drains was only 17–22%.
It should be noted that the effective surface area available for
water collection was only 80 3 10 3 m per unit vertical length
for a rectangular drain whereas this quantity was as high as
159.6 3 10 3 m per unit vertical length for the circular drain.
the drain was filled with rice husk, which is a free-draining
material. Furthermore, the circular drains allow a truly radial
drainage and that may not happen with the rectangular drains.
When making the rectangular drains, four layers of geotextile
were required to get a stable workable drain whereas in the
case of circular drains only two layers were needed to get a
self-supporting drain. This was possible because rice husk was
Beena • Babu
 650 mm 650 mm 650 mm
settlement, say 10 mm, for
circular drains using H2M8
50·8 mm Ø 325 mm coir geotextile, it was found
50 .8 mmΦ
that reductions of around 70,
74 and 82% were noted for

325 mm

650 mm
single, rectangular and
50·8 mm Ø triangular patterns,
R1
52 respectively. It should be
.4
noted that the radial drainage
Circular drain
paths for single, rectangular
and triangular patterns were
650 mm 650 mm 650 mm 300, 205 and 127 mm,
325 mm
respectively. Similar trends
were also found for the
rectangular type of drain (Fig.

325 mm
8). This may be due to the fact

100 mm
10 mm
Rectangular drain
Fig. 5. Layouts of coir geotextile drains
added as the PVC pipe was withdrawn. Furthermore, the two
wooden pieces of the rectangular drains were likely to make
the collection of water in the drain more difficult.
Considering the performance of the circular and rectangular
drains in terms of damage during installation and loading, it
was found that the installation of rectangular drains was easier
than the circular ones and also, after the loading, the
rectangular drains were found to be in an intact position
whereas the circular drains showed minor distortion.
4.2. Pattern of arrangement
In order to study the effect of layout of drains, three different
patterns were tried, namely one at the centre, three drains in a
triangular pattern and four drains in a rectangular pattern. Fig.
7 shows the results for a typical case of circular drains made of
H2M8 coir geotextile. It was observed from the figure that the
triangular pattern showed a better performance. Comparing the
performance in terms of reduction in time for a specified
650 mm
that the horizontal drainage
path was a minimum in a
staggered triangular layout in
comparison with the other
pattern of arrangements, as
can be observed from Table 5.
4.3. Types of coir
geotextiles
Two types of coir geotextiles were used for the study. Six
experiments were performed using drains made of H2M8 and
six others with drains made of H2M6. Figs 9 and 10 show the
time settlement behaviour of drains made of the two types of
coir geotextiles when using single drain and triangular patterns,
respectively. When a single drain was used both H2M8 and
H2M6 generally performed in a similar way, as can be seen from
Fig. 9. In the case of the triangular pattern, H2M8 performed in
a better manner when the circular type of drain was used, as
shown in Fig. 10, whereas only a nominal difference was
observed in the case of rectangular drains. This was considered
to be due to the large mesh size opening of H2M6 coir geotextile
and less rigidity. Being more flexible, more kinks could be
formed while using H2M6 and the rice husk inside the drain
could spread out through the mesh openings of the geotextile.
The stiffness of the rectangular type of coir drains, due to the
wooden reapers/bamboo strips inside the drain, prevented the
drain from forming kinks. A similar trend was also shown for
the rectangular layout pattern as shown in Fig. 11.

Exp. No. Description Percentage Percentage Percentage

increase in increase in reduction in time for
settlement in 24 h settlement in 48 h 10 mm settlement

2 Circular drain (H2M8)—one at centre 64.77 72.73 70.23

3 Circular drain (H2M6)—one at centre 64.77 68.18 67.44
4 Circular drain (H2M8)—three in triangular pattern 112.50 122.73 81.86
5 Circular drain (H2M6)—three in triangular pattern 64.77 78.18 71.63
6 Circular drain (H2M8)—four in rectangular pattern 76.14 81.82 74.42
7 Circular drain (H2M6)—four in rectangular pattern 64.77 68.18 66.51
8 Rectangular drain (H2M8)—one at centre 23.86 21.82 43.26
9 Rectangular drain (H2M6)—one at centre 21.59 17.27 43.72
10 Rectangular drain (H2M8)—three in triangular pattern 50.00 45.45 69.77
11 Rectangular drain (H2M6)—three in triangular pattern 40.91 34.54 61.86
12 Rectangular drain (H2M8)—four in rectangular pattern 42.05 38.18 62.33
13 Rectangular drain (H2M6)—four in rectangular pattern 40.91 34.54 55.81

Table 4. Performance comparison of drains in terms of settlement and time

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 Elapsed time: min Pattern of arrangement Drainage path: mm
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
0 Circular drain Rectangular drain
Soil only
Circular drain
Single 300.0 320.0
Rectangular drain
Triangular 127.0 147.5
5
Rectangular 204.4 229.8
Settlement: mm

10 Table 5. Drainage path for different arrangements

15 Elapsed time: min

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
0

H2M8 coir geotextile

20
5 Single drain

Settlement: mm
10
Fig. 6. Time–settlement behaviour of drains placed at centre

15
Elapsed time: min Soil only
H2M8 circular
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 20 H2M6 circular
0
H2M8 rectangular
Soil only
One drain at centre H2M6 rectangular
5 Three drains in triangular pattern 25
Four drains in rectangular pattern
Fig. 9. Influence of type of coir geotextiles on behaviour of
10
Settlement: mm

drains (one at centre)

15

Elapsed time: min

20 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
0

Circular drain using H2M8 coir geotextile

25 Three drains in triangular pattern
5

30

10
Fig. 7. Effect of layout of drains: circular type of drains
Settlement: mm

15

Elapsed time: min

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 20 Soil only
0
Soil only H2M8 circular
One drain at centre H2M6 circular
2 25
Three drains in triangular pattern H2M6 rectangular
H2M8 rectangular
4 Four drains in rectangular pattern

30
6
Settlement: mm

Fig. 10. Influence of type of coir geotextiles on behaviour of

8 drains (triangular layout)

10

12 5. CONCLUSION
As they are biodegradable the coir geotextiles were eco-
14 friendly and were cheap in comparison with the polymeric
counterparts. The use of coir geotextile for vertical drains is an
16
appropriate technology, which provides employment to the less
Rectangular drain using H2M8 able sections of society. This type of drain is particularly suited
18
to countries having a large production of coconut.
Fig. 8. Effect of layout of drains: rectangular type of drains
Based on the extensive laboratory investigations carried out on

48 Ground Improvement 161 Issue GI1 Testing coir geotextile drains for soft ground improvement Beena • Babu

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 Elapsed time: min
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
0 using vertical drains in soil improvement projects. Journal
Four drains in rectangular pattern
5
Settlement: mm
10
15
Soil only
H2M8 circular
20
H2M6 circular
H2M6 rectangular
H2M8 rectangular
25
Fig. 11. Influence of type of coir geotextiles on behaviour of
drains (rectangular layout)
two types of coir geotextile drains, which were made of two
different varieties of woven coir geotextiles in different
configurations, the following conclusions are made.
(a) Of the two types of coir geotextile drains tried, the circular-
type drain was found to be more efficient, although the
rectangular type was easier to install in the soil.
(b) The triangular layout was found to be more efficient than
central and rectangular layouts.
(c) The performance of the drains with H2M8 coir geotextiles
was better than that with H2M6 coir geotextiles.
(d ) It was found that for 10 mm settlement to take place under
a pressure of 10 kPa, the time required for the case of
circular drains installed in a triangular fashion was only
half of the time required without drains.
In general the time for consolidation was very much reduced
due to the provision of circular and rectangular coir drains in
all the configurations studied. Combining all parameters it was
found that circular-type coir geotextile drains using H2M8 coir
geotextiles installed in a triangular pattern gave the maximum
output in terms of reduction in consolidation time.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research work described in this paper was funded by the
All India Council for Technical Education, Ministry of Human
Resources, Government of India, New Delhi under the Research
and Development Scheme. The assistance given by the authors’
colleagues and laboratory staff at N.S.S College of Engineering,
Palakkad and at Cochin University of Science and Technology,
Kochi, India are gratefully acknowledged.
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