The influence of saturation on the interface shear strength of clay and nonwoven geotextile

The paper presents a series of modified direct shear tests to investigate the interface shear strength between clay and nonwoven geotextile under different normal stresses and degrees of saturation. The modified direct shear apparatus consists of a 60 mm × 60 mm square shear box assembly with a 60 mm × 60 mm acrylic block inserted in the bottom shear box. A woven geotextile layer was glued to the top of the acrylic block, while the top shear box was filled by the compacted clayey soil. The results revealed that the interface shear strength of clay and nonwoven geotextile reduced by 13.4-27.7% when changing from optimum moisture content (OMC) of the soil to saturation condition. The high permeability of nonwoven geotextile induced the dissipation of excess pore water pressure at the interface when shearing. As a result, the adhesion factor of the clay-geotextile interface increased from about 0.6 for the specimens at OMC to over 0.8 for consolidated saturated specimens. In contrast, for the impermeable reinforcement, the interface shear strength analysis of previous studies shows that the adhesion factor of the reinforcement and clayey soil would be reduced when increasing the water content of the clay specimens. Keywords: adhesion factor; clay; nonwoven geotextile, interface shear strength; saturation.