A Study of Dewatering and Filtration on Woven Geotextile Tube

The purposes of this paper are to study the use possibility of geotextile tubes for dewatering of high water content sludges and sediments and to evaluate affecting factors on dewatering. To do this, pressure filtration tests are conducted on four high water content materials with two geotextiles under two filtration pressures. Based on the test results, although woven geotextile tubes are not satisfied the soil retention criteria used in filter design commonly, a great portion of fines are retained by filter cake formation on geotextile tube's upstream side, but also after formation of filter cake, the permeability drops sharply. Higher filtration pressure tends to increase dewatering rate, but has very little effect on filtration efficiency. Dewatering capacity is affected by several factors which are related to the geotextile, but the property of sludge appears to be the dominant control factor for dewatering efficiency.