Installation of fine-grained organic dredged materials in combination with geosynthetics in the German DredgDikes research dike facility

Abstract

In the project DredgDikes with partners from Poland and Germany different dredged materials from the South Baltic Sea region are investigated with respect to their application in dike construction. Two large-scale experimental dikes have been built, one in Germany and one in Poland. Additionally, an extensive laboratory testing programme has been realised and a considerable monitoring test programme will be followed. Based on a short general description of the project this paper covers the issue of installation technology for the dredged materials used and a discussion of geotechnical parameters to be determined for material evaluation and quality control. Due to the high and variable natural water contents of the organic soils together with their inhomogenous composition the compactability is difficult to predict and proctor values may not be reliably determined. During the installation three different compaction technologies were compared and no extreme differences could be found, which is why the compaction with a caterpillar was chosen for efficiency on site. The critical analysis of the data, however, shows slightly better compaction results for the roller compactors. In general the degree of compaction was comparably low. Therefore, different possibilities to improve compaction are discussed in this paper, such as the homogenisation of the dredged material by simple in situ mixing technologies, which will be issues for further research.

Keywords

• dredged material
• dike
• levee
• installation technology
• compaction
• geosynthetics