The geotextile tube’s performance in strength, dewatering, retaining solid particles and stacked stability have been studied extensively in the past. However, only little research have been done in the observation of stress behavior of geotextile tubes. In this paper, a large-scale apparatus for geotextile tube experiment is introduced. Model tests was conducted using a custom made woven geotextile tubes. Load cells placed at the inner belly of the geotextile tube to monitor the total soil pressure. The pressure sensors are attached to a data logger which sends the collected data to a desktop computer. The experiment results showed that the maximum geotextile the soil pressure distribution varies at each geotextile tube section.

A series of injection and drainage test were conducted on an circular acrylic tube to investigate the pressure generated by the accumulated fill materials inside a circular acrylic tube structure. The acrylic tube was filled by means of gravity filling with a slurry material having an average water content of 700%. The water head during the filling process was 1.8m and the bottom pressure during initial filling was 20.18kPa. The recorded stress at the sides of the acrylic tube was 17.89kPa during the filling process and was reduced to 13.58kPa during the leaving process. Continuous drainage of the acrylic tube has greatly influenced the stresses around the tube structure. As the water is gradually allowed to overflow, the generated pressure at the topmost pressure sensor of the tube was reduced further to 2.17kPa. Eventually, the initially liquid state slurry material transforms into plastic state after water has dissipated and substantial soil particles are deposited in the acrylic tube. The final water content of the deposited silt inside the acrylic tube after the test was 42%. It was found that the state of stresses(geo-static earth pressures) in the acrylic tube was anisotropic rather than isotropic.