Comparisons of Geotextile-Water Characteristic Curves for Wicking and Non-Wicking Geotextiles
Chuang Lin, Xiong Zhang
Abstract
Geotextiles have been widely used in soil infrastructures for reinforcement, separation, filtration, and drainage purposes. For woven geotextiles, which are often used for reinforcing the base and subgrade in road embankments, will cause excess water accumulation near the geotextile installation location. As a result, the benefits of reinforcement are decreased and the deterioration of a roadway will be accelerated under repetitive traffic loads. Recently, a new wicking geotextile has been developed which has the capability to drain both free and capillary water out of a road embankment and has the potential to overcome the limitation of conventional woven geotextiles. The soil-geotextile system works under unsaturated conditions in most of its service life and limited research have been performed to determine the unsaturated hydraulic properties of the wicking geotextile. This paper aims at determining the geotextile-water characteristic curve of the wicking geotextile. Firstly, laboratory tests were performed to determine the geotextile-water characteristic curve. Then, the geotextile-water characteristic curves of wicking and non-wicking geotextiles were compared to demonstrate the advantages of the wicking geotextile in dehydrating soils.