Geosynthetics 2009

February 25-27 2009, Salt Lake City, Utah

HISTORY, PERFORMANCE AND DESIGN OF GEOTEXTILES IN LEVEES

M.L. Woodward, P.E., New Orleans District, USACE, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
J.L. Dendurent, P.E., TenCate Geosynthetics, Wichita, Kansas, USA

ABSTRACT
Geotextiles are a key element in building levees that will survive catastrophic storms. The geotextile-reinforced earthen
levees in New Orleans performed remarkably well during Hurricane Katrina. With the current focus on updating their
levee system to protect New Orleans from a 100-year storm event, the United States Corps of Engineers (USACE) may
rely heavily upon geotextiles in their designs.

In addition to reinforcing levees and allowing existing levees to be built taller and more robust, geotextiles help reduce
construction costs and reduce the size of or even eliminate stability berms. Geotextiles are also being used in innovative
ways for recovery and immediate repair of damaged levees.

This paper will focus on the history, performance and future use of geotextiles in levees. It will include a review of
literature and design methods, an examination of the performance of the geotextile-reinforced levees that survived
Hurricane Katrina, and USACE design improvements.

1. INTRODUCTION

Most of the engineering focus in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has been on the failed levees, the causes of failure
and how to improve levee design so that we do not experience similar calamities in the future. Little attention from the
media, technical investigators and the general public has been focused to the levees that successfully withstood the
similar storm surges and conditions as the levees that failed. For example, 9 miles (14.5 km) of the St. Charles levee and
7 miles (11.3 km) of the Jefferson Lakefront levee on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain are reinforced with
geosynthetics (Figure 1).

In a press release from the Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI) in April, 2008, the United States Army
Corps of Engineers (USACE)-New Orleans District (NOD), stated that “both the St. Charles and Jefferson levees were
loaded (filled by the storm) during Katrina and performed exceptionally. They were stable and the geosynthetic was
inherent to their strength.” (Aho, 2008b)

USACE engineers have been among the pioneers in levee design who saw the merits of utilizing high-strength
geotextiles to improve the stability of the levees and in the process save billions of dollars in construction costs,
thousands of acres in land and years of construction time. USACE has continuously been at the forefront of innovation in
the design of geosynthetic-reinforced embankments and levees on soft soils. As the USACE works to update the New
Orleans levee system to withstand design storm events, they will continue using geotextiles as part of their routine
design methods, and they are still partnering with industry leaders to improve public safety and refine the design of
reinforced levees.

2. HISTORY OF GEOTEXTILES IN LEVEES

In the 1980s, the geosynthetics industry was small but established. Forward-thinking design engineers were looking at
conventional designs in many areas of civil engineering and starting to see where geosynthetics could be used to
improve such things as public safety, project lifecycles, constructability, feasibility and construction costs.

USACE engineers were among the first to use geosynthetics in a soft-soil embankment project. They designed and built
a 26 ft (8 m) high embankment at the USACE’s dredged disposal site Pinto Pass in Mobile Harbor, Alabama in 1980
(Holtz, 2004). The foundation soils under the embankment had cohesions ranging from 50 psf (2.4 kPa) to 150 psf (7.2
kPa) (Fowler, 1981). As per Holtz (2004) this is an important case history because USACE documented and verified their
design assumptions and procedures. They also emphasized that proper construction methods are absolutely crucial for
successful construction of embankments on soft soils.

The USACE-NOD is credited with working with the geosynthetics industry to develop the high-strength geotextiles that
USACE now routinely uses to reinforce hurricane levees. These geotextiles were first proposed for use on the New
Orleans to Venice Hurricane Protection Project which “was stalemated because they could not raise the levee by
conventional methods. Raising would have made the levee fail into a drainage canal and they would have been forced
to ruin a whole lot of wetlands”. (Hall, 2003). Prior to beginning work on the 13 miles (21 km) of geotextile-reinforced

Figure 1 – Geotextile-Reinforced Levees in New Orleans area

hurricane levee, USACE-NOD constructed the first full-scale test section of a geotextile-reinforced hurricane levee to test
the performance of the proposed design. The test section performed better than expected (Duarte et al., 1989) and the
levee has performed well to date.

Since this first test section, USACE-NOD has been constructing and monitoring levee test sections and stretches of
geotextile-reinforced levees. They use what they have learned to improve their design methodology and construction
techniques.

2.1 USACE-NOD Test Sections

In order to better understand and improve the performance of geosynthetic-reinforced levees, USACE-NOD designed
and monitored four major levee test sections, three of which are examined in this article.

2.1.1 “Reach A” Test Section

The “Reach A” geotextile-reinforced levee test section was constructed in 1986 between the towns of Nairn and Empire
in Lower Plaquemines Parish in southern Louisiana as a prototype for a proposed 13 mile (21 km) enlargement of an
existing levee between City Price and Tropical Bend. This levee is part of the New Orleans to Venice Hurricane
Protection project mentioned above and is typically called “Reach A.” (Figure 1). The geotextile-reinforced alternative
was considered because raising the levee, by conventional methods, to the design storm height would have required a
very large footprint and relocating the levee 120 ft (46.6 m) toward the Gulf side and into the marsh (Bakeer et al., 1988).
The geotextile-reinforced design showed that such a levee could be built by degrading and raising the levee on its
existing alignment; saving time, money and land (Duarte et al, 1989).
Prior to this test section, it was well known that geotextiles could reinforce a levee embankment, reduce its footprint,
control deformation and increase its stability. However, the actual design methods for geotextile-reinforced
embankments still consisted mostly of conventional concepts of earth pressure and slope stability with minor
modifications for the effect of the geosynthetic. They had also not been sufficiently field verified to give USACE-NOD the
confidence they needed to build a large reinforced hurricane protection levee (Bakeer et al., 1988).

The potential benefits of buiding and monitoring the performance of a geotextile-reinforced embankment were significant
enough to justify the expense of such a test section. The Reach A test section was successfully instrumented with
inclinometers, settlement plates, piezometers and foil strain gauges. The instrumentation monitoring continued for two
years after construction began and verified the assumption that this geotextile-reinforced levee design was feasible, safe
and economical (Duarte et al., 1989).

The economic benefits of the geotextile-reinforced design on the 13-miles (21 km) of raised levee were (Bakeer et al.,
1988):
• A 35% savings on the overall cost compared to the original design ($30.8 million savings)
• Reduction in construction time from 13 to 6 years (resulting in significant insurance savings to residents)
• A 97% reduction in marshland used for the levee (original estimates of 4,000 acres (1,619 ha) were reduced to
100 acres (41 ha)
• A 60% reduction in required construction materials

The contributions of the test section to ongoing reinforced soft-soil embankment design research were:
• The measured (mobilized) strains in the geotextile were less than half of the design strains (Bakeer et al., 1988)
• The reinforced levee design resulted in a smaller cross section which reduced the destabilizing (driving) forces
and reduced vertical settlements (Bakeer et al., 1988)
• The observed maximum stresses as captured by the field instrumentation were not in the same location as the
postulated failure plane during design (Duarte et al., 1989)
• A well thought instrumentation installation is essential for capturing and presenting meaningful (reliable and
realistic) displacement and deformation profiles (Duarte et al., 1989)
• Provided data that helped refine and calibrate finite element analysis of geotextile-reinforced embankments
(Bakeer et al., 1988)
• Provided data that were used in the development of new guidelines for future reinforced embankment design
• The settlement and deformation pattern at the fabric level followed that of the generation and dissipation of the
observed pore water pressures (Bakeer et al., 1988)

After USACE-NOD completed the Reach A test section, the Plaquemines Parish Government reported that “The
Plaquemines Parish Government wholeheartedly supports the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the use of the geotextile
fabric to bring the New Orleans to Venice Hurricane Protection Levee up to grade and feels that the cost and time saved
to complete this portion of the project (Reach A) was excellent.” (Petrovich, 1987)

2.1.2 Bonnet Carre Test Section (Chiu et al., 1988)

The Bonnet Carre Spillway test section was constructed in 1988-89 in St. Charles Parish prior to the construction of 7
miles (11.3 km) of the Jefferson Parish Lakefront Levee. The goal of this test section was to verify USACE's newly
revised geotextile-reinforced levee design procedures. Similar to the Reach A levee, weak foundation soils and right of
way concerns made the cost of constructing an unreinforced levee prohibitive. The cost savings already realized in
Reach A and the potential cost savings in the Jefferson Parish Lakefront, St. Charles parish and West Bank levee
projects provided justification for further full-scale research.

This test section consisted of an all earthen unreinforced section of levee (UI), a reinforced levee section with one layer
of geotextile (RI) and a reinforced levee section with two layers of geotextile (RII), all built to a typical earthen levee
height of 19 ft (5.6m) National Geodectic Vertical Datum (NGVD). Full-scale field pullout tests were also conducted at the
test site using the borrow fill that would be used to construct the St. Charles and Jefferson Parish Lakefront Levees.
USACE-NOD wanted to push all three test sections to failure, which they tried to do by excavating immediately adjacent
to the levee toe. Table 1 summarizes the design geotextile strengths and the failures of the three sections.
 Table 1. Bonnet Carre Spillway Test Sections

Geotextile Strength
Failure Elevation (ft/m)
Section Required at 5% Strain Failure Mode
(NGVD)
(lbs/inch / kN/m)
UI - Unreinforced NA -7/-2.1 Catastrophic stability failure
RI - One layer of Large widespread cracks
1250/219 -10/-3.1
reinforcement with no displacement*
RII - Two layers of 900/158 (Bottom layer) Very small cracks with no
-10/-3.1
reinforcement 400/70 (Top layer) displacement**
*The strain in the geotextile in RI was less than 3% at failure. There was a concern about whether the geotextile
reinforcement was stretched and tightened correctly.
**After small cracks appeared at Elevation -10 ft, the levee was repaired by dressing it up to full grade and section. It
was excavated again down to Elevation -10 ft with no signs of failure.

Chiu et al (1988) observed and Napolitano (1994) stated that the “analyses indicate that these two levees (RI and RII)
may have experienced a bearing capacity failure, or excessive lateral movement, and not the conventional rotational
shear failure.” This is important because it reinforced that all failure modes should be analyzed very carefully.

The economic savings and benefits realized from the Bonnet Carre test section for the mainline St. Charles Parish and
Jefferson Parish Lakefront levees were similar to the benefits realized on Reach A.

The contributions of the Bonnet Carre test section to ongoing reinforced soft-soil embankment design research were:
• Two layers of reinforcement appear to be a more efficient “reinforcing pattern” than one layer
• Levees with two layers of geotextile can be easily and effectively repaired
• Often the assumed failure mode may not be the most critical one
• Failures of reinforced levees involve less significant consequences than failures of unreinforced ones under
similar conditions
• Particular attention must be paid to the stress-strain characteristics of the soil and the geotextile to ensure that
the two materials are compatible, as large movements in the soil may cause failures at correspondingly small
strains in the geotextile

2.1.3 Westminster East-West Test Section (Varuso et al., 2005)

The Westminster East-West test section was constructed south of the Mississippi River between the towns of Westwego
and Harvey, Louisiana to help USACE-NOD determine how to efficiently utilize geosynthetic reinforcement in earthen
levee embankment design and construction. This test section was part of a levee project approximately one mile (1.61
km) long. An unreinforced section for this levee was analyzed in design but was determined to be expensive and difficult
to construct.

USACE-NOD wanted to use monitoring data from this test section to derive a new design methodology that would
account for the anticipated gains in shear strength of the foundation soil due to consolidation during and immediately
following construction. USACE-NOD had observed in the past that consolidation, and thus subsequent shear strength
gains, were more uniform underneath reinforced test sections. This shear strength gain was attributed to the rapid
consolidation of upper strata resulting in less tensile force being transferred to the geotextile. USACE-NOD wanted to
verify all their design assumptions using the field instrumentation data.

The test section had the same cross-section as the mainline reinforced levee but used reinforcement with a five percent
(5%) strain strength of 5,822 lbs/ft (85 kN/m) instead of the 11,644 lb/ft (170 kN/m) reinforcement that was used in the
mainline levee. The test section included geogrids and geotextiles, but since the focus of this article is on geotextiles and
since a geotextile was proven to be the most cost-effective solution for the test section, all references in this article will
pertain to the geotextile reinforcement.

Instrumentation for this test section was designed to provide data needed to develop a design methodology that would
result in optimizing the use of the geotextile reinforcement's tensile strength. Soil samples were also taken 6 months after
construction to further analyze gain in shear strength.

The economic savings and benefits realized from this test section were very similar to past geotextile-reinforced levees.

Its main impact to ongoing reinforced soft-soil embankment design was:

• Quantification of the magnitude of shear strength increase in the foundation of this test section and formulation
of a method to account for it in design
 • Verification that the increase in cohesive shear strength resulted in an increased factor of safety from 1.0 to
greater than 2.0
• Verification that second lift construction costs could be reduced by up to 75% if the geotextile reinforcement is
initially designed to support the loading conditions.

2.2 Design Guidance

As in other areas of civil engineering, design concepts using geosynthetics are still not included as standard design
topics in many foundation and soft-soil embankment textbooks or design manuals. Likewise, USACE issued engineering
manual, EM 1110-2-1913 Design and Construction of Levees (2000), does not include any discussion on designing or
constructing levees with geosynthetics.

Like other agencies, such as the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), USACE references a separate design
manual, the Unified Facilities Critieria (UFC) Engineering Use of Geotextiles (USACE et al., 2004). The UFC Engineering
Use of Geotextiles manual (2004) has one chapter dedicated solely to the design of geotextile reinforced embankments
on soft foundations, following the basic design methodology of Holtz et al., (1997) and other industry-accepted
geotextile-reinforced embankment design procedures. The following topics are addressed in the UFC Engineering Use of
Geotextiles manual (USACE et al., 2004):
• Overall bearing capacity
• Slope stability
• Sliding wedge analysis for embankment spreading/splitting
• Analysis to limit geotextile deformation
• Determine geotextile strength parallel to the centerline of the levee
• Analysis of embankment settlements due to primary consolidation and plastic flow

The UFC Engineering Use of Geotextiles manual (USACE et al., 2004) is currently under revision and is scheduled to be
published shortly. It is the authors' understanding that the basic design methodology on geotextile-reinforced
embankment on soft soil foundations has not been significantly modified, but it has rather been updated to reflect more
current constructability criteria.

Since 1995 (the date of the most recent technical changes to the UFC Engineering Use of Geotextiles manual), USACE-
NOD has refined and improved the analysis, design and construction of geotextile-reinforced levees. They currently use
a design procedure for reinforced levees similar to design methodologies of the UFC 3-220-08FA manual (USACE et al.,
2004) with updates based on technology advances, improvements to industry-accepted design procedures, experience
accumulated from test section monitoring data analyses and advances in construction methods.

The most significant design development that USACE-NOD has implemented is incorporating (or quantifying) the
foundation shear strength gain during construction of a new geotextile-reinforced levee. This development is not yet
included in any of their technical manuals. This reality will increase the calculated stability factor of safety of a levee
(Varuso et al., 2005) and will reduce the required geotextile tensile strength, the size of the levee stability berms and
right of way requirements.

Other design procedures that USACE-NOD has incorporated into their levee designs as a result of lessons learned from
Katrina and the intense reviews that followed, are:
• Designing the geosynthetic reinforcement to support subsequent lifts that sometimes have to be constructed to
reach long-term elevations. This has significantly reduced the cost, construction time and settlement of the
subsequent lifts.
• Performing the design procedures using a number of different analytical methods to determine the possible
failure modes of a reinforced levee and the needed geotextile modulus. This has increased the confidence in
newly designed geotextile-reinforced levees by ensuring that possible failure modes are recognized and the
geotextile is designed to withstand loading associated with critical failure planes.

3. PERFORMANCE OF GEOTEXTILE-REINFORCED LEVEES IN HURRICANE KATRINA

As stated in the introduction, the geotextile-reinforced levees all performed exceptionally well through hurricane Katrina.
Both the Jefferson Parish Lakefront and the St. Charles Parish levees were inundated with storm surges but were not
breached, while other parts of the greater New Orleans storm and damage reduction system failed. The only breach in a
geotextile-reinforced levee was in the Plaquemines Parish Reach A levee due to erosion from overtopping and close
proximity of a perpendicular canal. The failure was not attributed to a bearing capacity, slope stability or geotextile
failure, and it is quite possible that the presence of the geotextile layer prevented deeper scour.
3.1 Plaquemines Parish Levee

3.1.1 Design

Reach A begins at the Buras Levee District MR&T Mainline Levee near City Price LA and extends to the B-1 hurricane
levee in the vicinity of Tropical Bend, LA (Figure 1). The levee height ranges from elevation 11.0 ft (3.4 m) North
American Vertical Datum (NAVD) to 14.5 ft (4.4 m) NAVD. The levee was built in two lifts on top of soils with cohesions
as low as 150 psf. The typical levee enlargement cross section for Reach A consisted of a marsh side embankment with
a wave berm. Floodwalls were constructed at the pumping stations. The base of the levee was constructed on one or
two separated layers of geotextiles of varying strengths that were anchored in to the existing levee. A sand blanket was
placed on the geotextile and covered with at least 2 ft (0.6 m) of clay. The additional layer of geotextile was used at
structural locations, such as pipelines, where a 1.5 global stability factor of safety was required by USACE-NOD . The
geotextile tensile strengths (at 5% strain) ranged from 1,070 lbs/in (187 kN/m) to 2,420 lbs/in (424 kN/m) on the
protected side and 140 lbs/in (25 kN/m) to 1,860 lbs/in (326 kN/m) on the flood side of the levee. Figure 2 shows a
typical geotextile-reinforced earthen levee section for Reach A. (USACE, 1987a)

3.1.2 Performance in Hurricane Katrina

During hurricane Katrina along Reach A, there was movement of the transition walls between the reinforced levee and
the Hayes and Gainard Woods Pump Stations and a breach at Nairn at a floodwall which allowed a pipeline penetration.
The only area where USACE- NOD had to replace a section of geotextile was at Homeplace, LA.

The hurricane protection levee at Homeplace, LA was significantly scoured during Hurricane Katrina and parish workers
tenuously reconstructed the section shortly afterward. The levee section was damaged further after Hurricane Rita and
the levee crown and slopes were replaced utilizing material from the adjacent levee crown. The as-built, geotextile-
reinforced levee system was damaged in the area of the scour. In addition, the compaction and moisture control during
the initial repairs was questionable and therefore the stability of the section was of concern. The permanent repair of the
levee section entailed degrading the levee section on either side of the scoured area to the elevation of the geotextile.
The geotextile was then replaced for that entire degraded section and the full levee embankment was reconstructed to
include stability and wave berms.

It is the opinion of USACE-NOD that the geotextile did not fail to serve its purpose. The scoured down to the geotextile
area (which was overtopped) was adjacent to a flood-side perpendicular canal. It is quite possible that the geotextile
prevented scour beneath the base of the levee.

Figure 2 Typical Section of Reach A (USACE, 1987)

3.2 St. Charles Parish Levee, North of Airline Highway

3.2.1 Design (USACE, 1989)

The St. Charles Parish north of Airline Highway levee is located in St. Charles Parish on the east bank of the Mississippi
river (Figure 1). It separates approximately 26,000 acres (10,522 ha) of wetlands from the developed areas of St.
Charles Parish. The geotextile-reinforced levee was constructed of semi-compacted haul clay fill on a sand bed and
reinforced by one layer of high strength geotextile (varying from 300 lbs/in ( 53 kN/m) to 700 lbs/in (123 kN/m) at 5%
strain). The net levee grade elevation varies from 12.0 ft (3.7 m) NAVD to 13.0 ft (4.0 m) NAVD. The levee was built in
two lifts over 15 years.

The design of the St. Charles levee utilized the results and advancements of the USACE-NOD test sections. The original
levee design was revised to reflect knowledge gained from the Bonnet Carre test section, which demonstrated that the
initial design was conservative. The new design accounted for foundation shear strength gain during construction. Shear
strength testing after subsequent lift construction of the mainline levee validated assumed shear strength gains. Figure 2
shows a typical design section of this levee.

Figure 3 Typical Section St. Charles Parish Levee (USACE, 1989)

3.2.2 Performance in Hurricane Katrina

The St. Charles Parish levee experienced a storm surge during Hurricane Katrina lower than the surges along the south
shore of Lake Pontchartrain where other types of levees failed. The St. Charles Parish levee was not breached or
damaged during Hurricane Katrina.

3.2.3 Future

The St. Charles Parish levee is currently being raised to Elevation +14 ft (4.3 m) NAVD. A straddle enlargement is
planned to raise the protection to Elevation +16.5 ft (5.0 m) NAVD mainly through the use of stability berms. The tensile
strength of the existing geotextile is typically not high to provide additional benefit in the enlarged section or failure
planes circumvent the existing geotextile.

3.3 Jefferson Parish Lakefront Levee

3.3.1 Design (USACE, 1987b)

The Jefferson Parish Lakefront Levee is located on the east bank of the Mississippi River. It is approximately 10.4 miles
(16.4 km) in length and is bounded on the north by Lake Pontchartrain. The geotextile-reinforced portion of the levee is
an enlargement of 9.4 miles (15.1 km) of the existing earthen levee to raise it to elevation +17 ft (5.2 m) NAVD. The
high-strength geotextile (1,000 lbs/in (175 kN/m) to 2,010 lbs/in (352 kN/m) at 5% strain) was used to reinforce the soil
foundation so that the levee could be brought to grade and section using the minimum amount of fill and no additional
rights-of-way. The existing levee was degraded, the geotextile was installed and the levee was built up to final grade.
Figure 4 shows a typical section of the Jefferson Parish Lakefront Levee.
 Figure 4 Typical Section Jefferson Parish Lakefront Levee (USACE, Nov 1987)

3.3.2 Performance in Hurricane Katrina

The Jefferson Parish Lakefront levee experienced a surge during Hurricane Katrina similar to the surges along the
eastern south shore of Lake Pontchartrain where other types of levees did fail. The Jefferson Parish Lakefront levee
was not breached or damaged during Hurricane Katrina.

3.3.3 Future

The Jefferson Parish Lakefront levee is currently being analyzed hoping that the existing geotextile will still provide some
benefit and the levee can be raised using a straddle enlargement. An alternative under consideration is to move the
levee centerline slightly towards Lake Pontchartrain.

3.4 Performances in Hurricanes Gustave and Ike

Damage assessments made after Hurricanes Gustave and Ike revealed no damage to the Reach A levee even though
both storms loaded the entire 13 mile (4.0 km) stretch of levee. Damage assessments of both the St. Charles Parish and
Jefferson Lakefront geosynthetic reinforced levees also revealed no damage to either levee subsequent to loading from
both Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

4. FUTURE DESIGN AND USE OF GEOTEXTILES IN LEVEES

In the USACE-NOD’s efforts to bring the Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System to
design storm event flood elevations, geotextiles may incorporated into many of the enlarged and new levees in order to
strengthen designs, reduce berm widths, save on fill material and subsequent lifts, reduce vertical settlement and reduce
the amount of real estate needed for the levees.

4.1 Existing Design Methods

The design methodology used by the USACE-NOD for geotextile-reinforced levees analyzes several modes of failure
including inadequate bearing capacity, slope stability failure, inadequate embedment/anchorage length of the geotextile,
lateral embankment sliding/spreading, creep of geotextile, service life of geotextile, and inadequate seam strength
and/or field overlap requirement of the geotextile. The design methodology also outlines potential for foundation strength
gains and use of noncircular slope stability failure surfaces using limit equilibrium methods. These design improvements
have not yet been incorporated into published USACE or UFC manuals. Numerical analysis of geotextile-reinforced
sections and strength reduction over the time and life of geotextiles are being researched for future inclusion into design
criteria.

4.2 Raising Levees Already Reinforced with Geotextiles

The basic alternatives for enlarging existing geotextile-reinforced levees include

• Degrading the existing levee down to its base, installing a new geotextile and rebuilding the levee to the design
elevation. Due to construction durations and a June to December hurricane season, USACE-NOD prefers not to
degrade long stretches of existing levee protection, thus limiting this option.
 • Building directly on top of the existing levee with long berms for stability in lieu of a new geotextile
• Building a new levee on a different alignment

4.3 Raising Unreinforced Levees with Geotextiles

There are two viable scenarios for raising the elevation of existing unreinforced earthen levees using geotextiles without
degrading the existing levee. Both alternatives are new reinforced levees constructed on the protected side of the
existing levees, one behind an existing unreinforced earthen levee and the other behind an I-wall levee (Figure 5).

Figure 5 Typical Section of Reinforced Levee behind Existing I-Wall

4.4 Design Improvements

As discussed throughout this article, USACE-NOD has recently made the following design improvements for geotextile-
reinforced levees:
• Higher factors of safety
• Incorporating (or quantifying) the foundation shear strength gain during construction
• Evaluation of more complex failure surfaces than previously used wedge or circular failure surfaces
• Designing the geotextile for the ultimate elevation of that levee and the loading required in the year 2057
• Setting an upper limit on the permissible geotextile tensile strength consistent with standard geotextile products

4.5 Construction Innovations

There have not been any major construction innovations on geotextile reinforcement placement as a result of Hurricane
Katrina. USACE-NOD continues to specify and enforce strict construction standards to ensure that the benefits of the
geotextiles are fully realized.

4.6 Research

The USACE and the geosynthetic industry have identified the following areas of research and testing as priorities that
are relevant to geotextile-reinforced levee design and performance:
• The long term design properties of geotextiles used in levees
• Measurement of settlement of geotextile-reinforced levees
• Measurement of lateral spreading of the base of geotextile-reinforced levees
• A design methodology accounting for foundation shear strength gain during construction in geotextile-reinforced
levees
• Numerical analysis and field verification of the actual failure modes and failure surfaces of geotextile-reinforced
levees
• The use of geotextiles for prevention of piping damage
• The use of geotextiles for scour protection
• The use of geotubes in levees

Language authorizing the USACE Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) to conduct studies, testing
and demonstration in some of these areas has been submitted in the Water Resources Development Act 2008 in the
United States Congress. (Aho, 2008b)
 5. CONCLUSION

Sprague et al. (1993) summarize the evolution of basic soft-soil embankment design and significant projects that
demonstrated the acceptance of and major lessons learned from the use of high strength, high modulus geotextiles in
this application to that time. Since then, the fundamental design approach has not changed significantly, but USACE-
NOD has refined and advanced the design and state-of-practice of geotextile-reinforced levees considerably. These
advancements could be beneficial to other entities (public and private) involved in levee design and embankment over
soft-soil foundation applications.

The substantial influence of the USACE-NOD test section monitoring results analysis and the performance of the
geotextile-reinforced levees through hurricanes Katrina, Gustave and Ike, as well as the lessons learned from Katrina,
provide further evidence that geotextiles have greatly contributed in sustaining our infrastructure and protecting the
public.

REFERENCES

Aho, A (2008b), Language specifying use of geosynthetics submitted for water resources development act 2008, Industrial
Fabrics Association News Release.
Aho, A. (2008a), Levees reinforced with geosynthetics perform exceptionally well, Industrial Fabrics Association
International, News Release.
Bakeer, R.M., Hadj-Hamou, T.A., Duarte, F.M., Satterlee, G.S. (1988), Field test of a geotextile-reinforced levee, Journal
of Geotechnical Engineering, 26: 90-101.
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