EFFECT OF PERMEABILTY ON THE STABILITY OF GEOTEXTILES SET ON SEABED AGAINST WAVES

Abstract

 During the construction of rubble mounds, geotextiles on the seabed sometimes have trouble of their lifting due to waves. Therefore, an appropriate method is required to calculate the minimum mass of weights to prevent the lifting of the geotextile. In this study, hydraulic experiments and numerical simulations were conducted for the wave stability of geotextiles on the seabed to investigate the effect of the permeability: one type is the impermeable geotextile and four types are the permeable geotextiles. The experimental results showed that the higher the permeability of the geotextiles, the higher the critical wave height for the geotextile stability against wave uplift force. Furthermore, the numerical simulations revealed that the overturning moment for the geotextiles can be approximately reproduced by considering the drag force of the Darcy law estimated from the coefficient of permeability of the geotextile.