THE DEVELOPMENT OF EROSION SIMULATION TECHNIQUE OF GEOTEXTILE SHEETS BASED ON REACTION DIFFUSION SYSTEM

Abstract

 Outflow of backfilling materials from embankment with revetment often induces sinkholes and ground subsidence. Although covering the embankment surface with the geotextile sheets would be effective in suppressing the outflow, sheets degradation promotes outflow to the contrary. Inconveniently, the constructed geotextile sheets cannot be observed directly as they are underground, thereby simulation tools which can evaluate the sheets degradation is required. In this study, the authors presented several mathematical models and a numerical simulation tool for calculation of the geotextile sheets degradation. The comparison studies between experimental and numerical results indicated that the degradation rate of geotextile sheets obtained by the proposed models was good agreement with the experimental results. In numerical examples that assumes actual environments, we found that the degradation of geotextile sheets is strongly dependent on material heterogeneity. These findings suggest that the proposed method is a promising tool for qualitatively predicting and evaluation the degradation of geotextile sheets over time.