Study on Improvement Characteristics of a Novel Geotextile with Stitched Transverse Ribs

Abstract

Geotextile is one of the reinforcement materials adopted in many engineering structures. Conventional geotextiles have a limited reinforcement effect due to the insufficient friction strength between geotextiles and soils. This paper proposes a novel type of geotextile with stitched transverse ribs to improve the reinforcement effect. A series of large-scale direct shear tests have been conducted, and the improvement characteristics between conventional geotextiles, geogrids, and the novel geotextiles have been studied. The results show that the novel stitched transverse rib geotextiles can significantly increase the shear strength compared to conventional geotextiles and geogrids. Moreover, due to the restraint and friction effect of ribs on the soils, the reinforcement effect of the novel geotextile is increased with increasing ribs. Insights from this study can provide a new understanding of the novel stitched transverse ribs geotextile’s reinforcement mechanism in engineering.