Behavior of 'Draintube' Drainage Geocomposites under High Compression Load

摘要

In the late 90's, a new type of drainage geocomposite was developed. This product differs from traditional geocomposites as the drainage core is comprised of multiple corrugated and perforated pipes instead of a planar drainage media. As a result, index and performance properties for this type of structure differ from those commonly used for planar drainage geocomposites. In this paper, "Draintube" drainage geocomposite is presented along with its key properties and the drainage mechanism associated with its particular structure. The major factors affecting its' engineering properties are also presented. These will show that when adequately confined in soil, the particular structure of this product allows it to sustain extremely large normal loads without significant changes in transmissivity. These observations are further discussed to demonstrate the lack of sensitivity of the product to creep when compared to other conventional drainage geocomposites. Based on these observations, creep reduction factors to be used in the design of drainage structures involving a ‘Draintube' drainage geocomposite confined in soil are suggested. The suggested creep reduction factors for "Draintube" are then compared to those commonly used for conventional drainage geocomposites in similar situations.