Effect of Various Factors Affecting Electrokinetics Dewatering of Soil Using Conductive Geotextile

Abstract

Electrokinetic principles are being used in many geotechnical engineering application such as dewatering, decontamination, solid enhancement. Soils in the presence of high water content tend to loose the interparticle bonds, resulting in high compressibility of the soils, low bearing capacity and low permeability of the soil. All these issues lead to increase in settlement values or differential settlements. The presented paper used the process of electrokinetic dewatering to enhance the draining of water and thereby improve the strength of soft soil. The electrokinetic geosynthetics used give technical benefits over conventional electrodes in that they can be formed as strips, sheet, blankets, etc. They are light and easy to install. This paper describes laboratory experiment using polyester cotton-based materials intertwined with copper wires as a cathode and carbon electrode as anode with three types of soil under present investigation. The various factors studied for the same are experimental duration, electrode, voltage gradient and re-run analysis. It is observed that there is an increase in the percentage removal of water content with increase in value of each of the factor with increase in shear strength of the soil in case of effect of electrode.