Using geotextile tubes for dewatering and beneficial use of high water content solid wastes: design charts and verifications

Abstract

The interest to push the beneficial use of high water content solid waste materials to a greater extent has increased tremendously. Using woven geotextile tubes as confinement and dewatering facilities for industrial, municipal sludges, and dredged materials offers various advantages to expand and enhance existing beneficial use strategies. To be successful, proper design of geotextile tubes is critical. This paper presents a non-dimensional mathematical solution for the design of geotextile tubes and to determine geotextile tube geometry and tensile strength parameters. Experimental results from butyl rubber and geotextile bag filling tests are used to validate the mathematical solutions. Excellent agreements are observed between the calculations and the measurements, which justify the use of the mathematical model and solution charts generated from it to determine design parameters for geotextile tubes.