SCALE EFFECTS IN SOIL-GEOTEXTILE DIRECT

SHEAR TESTS

dr inż. Adam F. Bolt,

mgr inż. Angelika Duszyñska
Politechnika Gdańska, Wydział Inżynierii Środowiska, Katedra Geotechniki

Summary:

This paper presents the results of a study to evaluate the interface friction between geotextiles and
soil, conducted by Geotechnical Laboratory of Environmental Engineering of the Gdañsk
Technical University. The objective of this investigation was to evaluate the interface behaviour of
geotextile under soil-geotextile-soil system with a special regard on a specimen size. The
difference in behaviour of woven and nonwoven type was also a part of the investigation. The
study involved five kinds of geotextiles: a woven type - multi-filament woven polyester and
nonwoven type - needlepunched polypropylene and polyester. All tests were performed in two
kinds of apparatus: one a special designed direct shear machine where 40 cm x 25 cm specimen of
material can be tested, second classic shear machine where 10 cm x 10 cm specimen of material
can be used.

1. INTRODUCTION and disadvantages of each are discussed by

Collios, et al.(1980) and Christopher and Holtz
Friction between geotextiles and soil appears
(1985). Because the equipment is simpler and
to be a rather complex interaction
more readily available, the direct shear method
phenomenon. Factors such as geotextile
is more commonly used than the pullout test,
surface and opening characteristics, the
although testing of geotextiles often requires
particle size distribution, grain shape, and
some minor modifications to conventional
relative density of the soil, loading conditions,
direct shear boxes. The trend seems to be to
normal stress, and the relative movement
consider the direct shear test as an index test
between the geotextile and soil all influence
for soil-geosynthetic friction, while the pullout
soil-geotextile interaction. Existing friction
test is used more as a performance test for
tests fall into two broad categories: pullout
investigations of soil geosynthetic interaction
tests and direct shear tests, and the advantages
properties.
In direct shear tests, some attention has to be
paid to scale effects because they influence the
boundary conditions in the apparatus. The
scale may be expressed by the ratio of sample
length to the average particle size, or L/d50.
According to Jewell and Wroth (1987), a
minimum value of L / d50 = 50 is necessary to
ensure that a sufficient number of soil particles
are involved in the shearing. Larger values of
this ratio would allow more local
discontinuities, as have been observed in tests
on sand by Scarpelli and Wood (1982) and on
clays by e.g. Hvorslev (1960) and
Morgenstern and Tchalenko (1967).
Furthermore, the extensibility of a geotextile
has been found to significantly affect its load
transfer mechanism in pullout tests (see e.g.
Holtz 1977). Thus, scale effects are probably
also influenced by the different extensibility of
geotextiles as compared to quasi-inextensible
Fig. 1. The Large Direct Shear Apparatus
reinforcing materials, e.g. metal strips, grids,
etc. Other geotextile characteristics such as
surface texture, thickness, and modulus, as
well as soil properties and field loading
conditions all affect the results of direct shear
tests and their applicability to field conditions.
The objective of the investigation reported
herein was to evaluate the effect of specimen
size on the shearing resistance of different
geotextiles. The differences in direct shear
behaviour of one woven and four nonwoven
geotextiles were also investigated.
2. APPARATUS AND TEST DESCRIPTION
Tests were performed in a large and small
direct shear device. The Large Direct Shear
Apparatus (LDSA) has been developed in the
Geotechnical Department of the Technical
University of Gdañsk especially for testing
geotextiles. Length of the test box is 40 cm,
width 25 cm, and depth of both halves is
10 cm. The apparatus is quite versatile; it is
configured so that pullout and confined
tension tests as well as direct shear tests may
be performed. A photograph of the apparatus
is shown in Fig. 1. Soil is placed into the lower
half of the box, compacted to the specified
density, and its surface trimmed level. The
geotextile sample is clamped to the inside of
one end of the lower half of the shear box and
placed on the soil surface. (Length and width
of the geotextile are purposely larger than the
dimension of the box to prevent a decrease in
the soil- geotextile contact area during shear).
Next the upper half of the shear box is placed
on the lower half, and the soil is placed and
compacted on the geotextile sample. A Steel
plate of width and length equal to the inner
dimension of the shear box is placed on the
levelled soil and the desired normal pressure is
applied hydraulically. The upper half of the
box is then moved upwards slightly by means
of three set screws to ensure that a small gap is
maintained between both halves of the box.
During shear, the lower half of the box with
the geotextile sample is pulled out from under
the upper half of the box, which is fixed to the
reaction frame. The rate of shearing of the
LDSA was normally 6mm/min or 1.5%/min
(6/400=0.015).
The Small Direct Shear Apparatus (SDSA)
used in the study is conventional soils direct
shear test unit with 10x10 cm square box.
Shearing at the soil- geotextile interface was
caused by pushing the upper half of the test
box. The specimen was clamped outside the
lower half of the box rather than inside as in
the LDSA. The rate of shearing of the SDSA
was 1%/min; gearing of the apparatus did not
allow testing at shear rate 1.5%/min. It was
established for the sand used in the tests that a
deformation rate of 1.0 to 1.5% gives nearly
identical shear stress for both lose and dense
states at both low and high normal stress. A
similar conclusion was reached for fine sand
by Kulhawy and Peterson (1979) for
deformation rates 0.2 to 0.6%/min. Little
sensitivity of uniform sand to strain rate is also
reported by Myles (1982).
The tests were conducted with vertical
normal stresses of 25 kPa, 50 kPa, 100 kPa .
For both types of tests, the testing
procedure was similar. During shearing the
horizontal displacements and shear forces
were recorded. Each test was carried out until
the shearing force became stable or decreased.
Usually horizontal displacement of about 8 to
12% of the length of the moving half of the
box was achieved.
3. GEOTEXTILES 5. RESULTS OF TESTING PROGRAM

Five geotextiles - four woven needle punched
geotextiles of different weights, thicknesses,
and surface characteristics, and one multi-
filament woven were tested. The basic
properties are presented in Table 1.
More than 120 tests were performed. Large
amount of the tests were done by Alenowicz
(1987). The results are summarised in Table 3.
Average results obtained for tests on sand
alone in both the small and large boxes for

Table 1. Geotextiles

No Geotextile type Mass/unit Thickness

[g/m2] [mm]
1. Woven multi-filament polyester 200 0,5
2. Nonwoven needlepunched, short staple propylene
Light heat bonding on one side 180 1,3
3. Nonwoven needlepunched continuos filament polyester 500 4,1
4. Nonwoven needlepunched polypropylene 360 5,0
5. Nonwoven needlepunched (one side) polypropylene 400 6,5

various vertical stresses are presented in Fig.2.

4. ENGINEERING PROPERTIES OF THE
The peak shear stress values from these curves
SOILS
formed the basis for comparison of the contact
The sand used in the tests was a quartz dune
efficiency, defined as the ratio of the tangent
sand from Gdañsk Bay. Average values of the
of the interface friction angle to the tangent of
basic properties of the sand are presented in
the friction angle of the soil alone.
Table 2. Angle of internal friction was
As the primary purpose of this study was to
evaluated from linear approximation of the
investigate, with regard to specimen size, the
average values of maximum shear stress for
relative shear resistance of the interface
vertical stresses ranging from 15 to 100 kPa.
compared the soil alone, results obtain in the
large and small boxes were plotted as  vs.
Table 2. Soil properties
s/L0 where s/L0 is the relative displacement s
Uniformity coefficient - 1,4 to the „confined” sample length L0. Example
Effective size mm 0,18
results are presented in Figs. 3 to 9 for various
Median size mm 0,24
Water content % 0,10 normal stresses. For each curve the peak value
Dry unit weight kN/m3 16,4 of the shear stress and s/L0 were evaluated
Density index % 70
Angle of internal fraction  32 (large dot for large shear box and large
triangle for small shear box).
Table 3. Average results of tests on sand in large and small shear box

Geotextile Materials in contact Test box Global

No max/ tan/tan
- Sand Alone LDSA 0,80 1,0
SDSA 0,80 1,0
1 Sand-woven multi-filament polyester LDSA 0,619 0,81
SDSA 0,517 0,68
2A Sand-nonwoven needlepunched polypropylene LDSA 0,640 0,84
(bonded side) SDSA 0,530 0,71
2B Sand-nonwoven needlepunched polypropylene LDSA 0,709 0,94
(unbounded side) SDSA 0,652 0,89
3 Sand nonwoven needlepunched polyester LDSA 0,704 0,92
SDSA 0,679 0,88
4 Sand-nonwoven needlepunched polypropylene LDSA 0,630 0,92
SDSA 0,580 0,85
5A Sand-nonwoven polypropylene (smooth side) LDSA 0,700 0,93
SDSA 0,602 0,83
5B Sand-nonwoven needlepunched polypropylene LDSA 0,760 1,0
(rough side) SDSA 0,670 0,93
 m ax /
1
0,88
0,9
only sand
0,8 0,86
0,80
0,7 0,75

0,6

0,5

0,4

0,3

0,2

0,1

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100  n [kP a]

Fig. 2.Average results for the sand from LDSA and SDSA.

For all of tests on dry sand, the range of increased and as its surface became rougher
deformation at which peak values of shear (for example Geotextiles No. 4 and 5), the
stress occurred were: relative displacement (s/L0) differed
 large box: s / L0 = 2,1  9 % significantly, but the difference between
 small box: s / L0 = 2,4  13 % values of absolute displacement at peak of
The relative displacement at peak of shear shear stress from both tests was less. In
stress for box shear boxes show quite good general, the relative displacement was
agreement for Geotextiles 1 (woven), 2 and 3 somewhat greater for higher normal stress.
(both nonwoven needlepunched); however,
rather large differences were observed
between the results in small and large shear
boxes for Geotextiles 4 and 5, which are soft
and thick. As the geotextile thickness
Fig. 3. Results of LDSA and SDSA tests on
sand and Geotextile No.1. Fig. 6. Results of LDSA and SDSA tests on
sand and Geotextile No.3.

Fig. 4. Results of LDSA and SDSA tests on

sand and Geotextile No.2, side with Fig. 7. Results of LDSA and SDSA tests on
light heat bonding. sand and Geotextile No.4.

Fig. 8. Results of LDSA and SDSA tests on

sand and Geotextile No.5, smooth side.
Fig. 5. Results of LDSA and SDSA tests on
sand and Geotextile No.2, side without
heat bonding.
Fig. 9. Results of LDSA and SDSA tests on
sand and Geotextile No.5, rough side.

Fig. 11. Results of Fig. 5 normalised with

respect to the normal stress.

Fig. 10. Results of Fig. 4 normalised with

respect to the normal stress.

To understand this behaviour, the data were

plotted in terms of dimensionless shear stress
and displacement ratios / vs. s/L0. For the
Fig. 12. Results of Fig. 9 normalised with
side of Geotextiles No. 2 which was lightly
respect to the normal stress.
heat bonded, the shape of the curves and the
relative displacement (Fig. 10) from the small slightly less. For the side without any heat
and large shear boxes are quite similar, bond (Fig. 11), the range of relative
although the values of peak shear stress are displacements differed significantly. In Fig. 12
the normalised results on a thick and soft
material (Geotextile No 5) are shown.
Differences in both the shapes of curves and
peak shear stress values are much more
significant.
The peak values obtained from ( - s/L0)
were plotted in  -  space, and at least squares
best-fit linearization through the origin was
used to obtain the respective friction angles
(Fig. 13). The results are shown in Table 3.
The contact efficiency was always greater for
the Large DSA than the Small DSA.
Fig. 13. Results of normalised peak values of /n dependent on the normal stress level.
6. CONCLUSIONS
The shear box is a facility very common in the
laboratories of soil mechanics. The adaptation
to specific tests of friction with geosynthetics
is not difficult. But it is important to keep in
mind that Direct Shear Test is a test more
difficult than it looks.
The results of these tests meet the general
conclusion developed on the basic of the work
on the Technical Committee 189 „Geotextiles”
of CEN (Gourc and others, 1996).
For the standard test the whole conditions
should be comparable. The boundary
conditions of the test can influence very much
the results.
It is proposed by TC 189 of CEN to use the
box of 30 cm x 30 cm and the tests performed
with standard sand for the index tests.
The support of the geosynthetic could be
rigid (smooth plate) or as in our tests the
geosynthetic could be spread on the soil filling
the lower box.
Usually for rigid support we obtain the
lower friction than for the sand support.
Based on data presented in this paper, the
following conclusions can be drawn:
1. For rough and soft materials the interface
friction () was high, in some cases close to
2. The interface friction angle for sand is
dependent on the vertical stress level. The
friction angle () decreases with increasing
normal stress level (25>50>100 where the
subscripts refer to the normal stress in kPa).
3. The range of interface friction angle for
residual stresses were from 90% to 95% of
the interface friction angles for peak values,
depending on the soil density and type of
geotextile.
4. The size of the shear box affects the value
of the efficiency coefficient (tan  / tan ).
The same conclusion was found by others,
e.g., Degoutte and Mathieu (1986), for
shear boxes 30 cm x 30 cm and
5 cm x 5 cm. Angles of interface friction
obtained for the same sand, geotextiles and
normal stress in the large box were higher
than for the small box, and they were more
stable with increase of normal stress.
The problems of the standard tests in
DSA still are under discussion and need future
attention.
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