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Cleaning Water Bodies Using Geotextile Tubes: New Challenges and Opportunities

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Abstract

Geotextile tubes have been used in many projects to dewater dredged sediments from ponds, lakes, rivers, and ports to successfully achieve the desired dewatering rate, sediment retention, and effluent. A wide variety of performance tests are conducted to select the polymers and its dose and to estimate percentage solid content of the dewatered sediments and quality of the effluents. Despite many successes, the use of geotextile tube technology is still not widely adopted. Over the last twenty years, significant research has been done at Syracuse University in the broader area of geotextile tube dewatering with an aim to develop new and effective performance tests. This research explores and assesses the feasibility of using starch and natural fiber geotextiles and use of fibers in the slurry to increase strength of dredged sediments. The lab and field studies have been conducted using over fifty different types of sediments from water bodies and standard soils (fine sand, silt, clay, and organic soils), over fifteen types of woven and nonwoven synthetic and natural fiber geotextiles and thirty types of polyacrylamides and starches. Results of these studies have been published in numerous journal articles, conference proceeding papers and MS and PhD thesis and dissertations. In this paper, some of the highlights of the research conducted at Syracuse University are presented, with a hope that it will challenge others to use this technology for cleaning and maintaining water bodies, small or large, worldwide.

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Acknowledgements

Over the last twenty years, I have been privileged to work with very talented and amazing undergraduate students (Alice C. Gustafson, Jimmy Cheung, Sarah E. Sitek, Erin Zeqja, Elizabeth (Lily) Maio, Andrew Martin Stalling, David Robert Wilson, Hanan Koni, Anna Gordon, Daniel Partin, Sheryl Owen, Erin Jackson, John Spritzer, Louis Lafata, Juwairiah Ahmad, Jeremy Driscoll, Shawn Tyler Roberts, Joanna Yiyi Ding, Conor Driscoll, Corinne Wellington, Jeremy Driscoll, Shawn Tyler Roberts, Bilal Zuhric, Samantha Steele, Katie Duggan) and graduate students (Kaixia Liao, Ranjan Satyamurthy, Brett W. Maurer, Matt D. Grzelak, Thomas Pullen, Mahmoud M. Khachan, Prabesh Rupakheti, George Sagre, Brian Buontempo, CR Ratna Yesuraj, Chittoori Ganesalingam, Zeru B. Kiffle) who came up with great ideas and implemented them with great enthusiasm. The outstanding work of my students has made the research journey of geotextile tube dewatering at Syracuse University most satisfying. I am very grateful for the students and for their hard work and commitments. This research received support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Geosynthetic Institute (GSI), and the WenHsiung and Kuan-Ming Li Graduate Fellowship. The author would like to thank Peter Kaye, Chris Timpson, and Tom Stephens of TenCate for their advice and support. Collaboration with Greg Lebster and. Wilcox of WaterSolve LLC has been very meaningful. They provided us numerous dredged samples and opportunities for field testing. I cannot thank them enough for their unwavering support. I would like to thank Mr. Anthony LeCroy and the late Dr. George Tichenor, SNF for not only providing polyacrylamide flocculants but also for training us to use them. Last but not the least, I would like to thank Dr. Babu T Jose, Dr. Anil Joseph, and Dr. Beena K.S. for inviting me to present a keynote at the Indian Geotechnical Conference 2022, Kochi. India.

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Funding was provided by Directorate for Engineering, CMMI 1100131, Bhatia K. Shobha.

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  1. Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, 13244, USA

    Shobha K. Bhatia

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Bhatia, S.K. Cleaning Water Bodies Using Geotextile Tubes: New Challenges and Opportunities. Indian Geotech J 54, 63–84 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40098-023-00759-8

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