A Novel Design Principle of Geotextile-Reinforced Banks

Abstract

A new principle in the design of a bank reinforced by geotextiles is proposed without use of the convention called the rule of triangular tension distribution; this rules how the total textile tension required to improve the horizontal tenacity of a bank is allocated to the laid textiles depending on each lay depth. As pointed out earlier by the authors, this conventional distribution seems to be assumed on no or at least an unidentifiable physical ground. The new rule of allocation of tension is based alternatively on the distribution over lay depth of the minimum force to pull out each textile from the front or back of an interface imagined as a potential slip site in the bank. The theory can estimate at every lay depth the strength of textile material which is required by the necessary and sufficient reinforcement to guarantee the bank the specified safety for all possible supposition of slip interface.