Dewatering of reservoir sediment slurry using woven geotextiles. Part I: Experimental results

摘要

ABSTRACT: A series of falling-head dewatering column tests (FHDT) was performed using anmixture of water and reservoir sediment and four types of woven geotextile to investigate thenfactors that control the permeability and piping of underdrainage dewatering systems such asngeotextile containers and dewatering ponds. Some conventional criteria for the filter selection werenalso examined. It was found that the permeability of the geotextile dewatering system isncharacterized by the thickness and the void ratio of the filter cake that progressively depositsnupstream of the geotextile. The filter cake exhibited a normally consolidated state with ancompression index of 0.7, and the height of the potential filter cake can be predicted based on thentotal suspended solids and the void ratios measured in the present study. It was also found that thenconventional soil retention and clogging criteria should be reformulated for the geotextilendewatering system to take into account some fundamental aspects of the system that were ignorednin these existing criteria.