Experimental study on sand blocking characteristics of silt curtain in the settling basin

This article contraposes the sand blocking characteristics of silt curtain, two-dimension physical model experiments were conducted to study the horizontal permeability coefficient and sand blocking effectiveness.The effects of different elements (current speed, tide level and sediment grain size) were considered respectively to analysis the influence of sand blocking effectiveness.The results of this research shows that, the horizontal permeability coefficient of silt curtain is not only related to the size, shape and connectivity of pore, but also depends on the sandiness water movement where it is in.The horizontal permeability coefficient reduces with the current speed increase.The silt curtain shows a higher sand blocking characteristics for a larger sediment grain size.The faster current speed and the bigger sand-carrying gap that is it means the higher tide level leads to more obvious sand blockingeffectiveness decrease with other conditions unchanged.