Effect of boundary conditions on the hydraulic behavior of geotextile filtration system

There are several test methods available for studying the behavior of geote xtile/soil filtration systems. However, there has not been a consensus on w hich one of these methods should be the most appropriate. In this research, gradient ratio (GR) tests and hydraulic conductivity (HCR) tests were perf ormed to evaluate the effects of boundary conditions on the behavior of geo textile/soil filtration systems. The test results show that the hydraulic c onductivity of the filtration systems decreased as the effective stress and hydraulic gradient increased. Furthermore, the hydraulic conductivity obta ined from GR tests with a hydraulic gradient of 5 could be taken as the low er bounds for HCR test results. Therefore, it is suggested that the GR test can be used to obtain reasonable and conservative design parameters of the filtration systems. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.