Laboratory tests for simulating abrasion damage of a woven geotextile

As a preliminary study on the durability of geosynthetic tubes used for seashore and streambank protections, a circular flow chamber was established to investigate the abrasion damage of a woven geotextile subjected to various turbid flow conditions, such as test durations, flow velocities and particle concentrations. It was found that the ultimate strength loss of the tested woven geotextile subjected to a specific flow duration can be expressed as a linear function of particle concentration and flow velocity, based on the experimental results obtained from a limited number of the laboratory circular flow chamber tests. It was also shown that the equations obtained using a linear regression technique generated small errors in predicting the ultimate strength losses when compared with those obtained in the laboratory circular flow chamber tests. The equations derived herein facilitate the assessment of abrasion damage of the tested geotextile to be used in shore protection measures. These equations are also potentially useful in linking in-field abrasion damage of the tested geotextile to that obtained in laboratory index tests, such as the sliding block sand paper method.