Author

Louis Lafata

Degree Type

Honors Capstone Project

Date of Submission

Spring 5-1-2014

Capstone Advisor

Shobha K. Bhatia, Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor

Honors Reader

Mahmoud Khachan

Capstone Major

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Capstone College

Engineering and Computer Science

Audio/Visual Component

no

Capstone Prize Winner

no

Won Capstone Funding

no

Honors Categories

Sciences and Engineering

Subject Categories

Civil and Environmental Engineering | Civil Engineering

Abstract

Each year, more than 250 million cubic yards of sediment need to be dredged from U.S. ports, harbors and waterways to maintain navigability. This is accomplished by dredging, the process of excavating submerged sediment by means of scooping or suction. Dredged sediments have low solids content, typically between 10% and 20% for hydraulic dredging. Geotextile tubes are one of many methods utilized to dewater these sediments, which is a process of removing water from sediment that contains low percent solids. Understanding the engineering behavior of slurries inside geotextile tubes is critical for the evaluation of the properties of the dewatered sediments. This study explores the effect of particle shape and size of fine sediments such as silt, subrounded sand and spherical glass beads to assess their particle network compressibility and compressive strength behaviors, which will enable the determination of the ultimate solids content that these sediments can obtain in a geotextile tube environment. Sediments that are more spherical have shown to achieve higher initial and final solids contents. Sediments that are more spherical also achieve their maximum packing structure at lower compressive forces compared to sediments that are less spherical. Less spherical sediments have shown to rearrange gradually with each successive compressive force to achieve the optimal packing structure, representative of the continuous reorientation of the particle network.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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