Introducing a novel tubular geotextile (braid structure) to reinforce sand beds

In this research study, tubular geotextiles in the form of a braided structure have been used as a new type of geosynthetic for soil reinforcement. A series of standard plate load tests was conducted on unreinforced sand beds and sand beds reinforced with soil-filled tubular braided geotextile elements and planar geotextile layers to investigate and compare the performance of soil-reinforcing systems. The effect of embedded depth of the first reinforcement layer, the vertical spacing between layers, the length of reinforcement and the diameter of tubular geotextile elements on the behaviour of reinforced sand bed were investigated. The results showed that the application of horizontal tubular geotextile elements filled with soil could improve the ultimate bearing capacity and stiffness of the sand bed, and it could reduce the settlement significantly. The performance of the tube-shape reinforcement was much better than the planar reinforcement layers with similar material, properties, texture and areal density. Using tubular braided geotextiles in comparison with the similar planar layers resulted in an increase of ultimate bearing capacity and sand bed stiffness, and caused a significant reduction in the footing settlement. Overall, the tube-shaped geotextile having a braided structure proposes a strong potential as a novel soil-reinforcement material.