GEOTEXTILES IN ROAD CONSTRUCTION, MAINTENANCE AND EROSION CONTROL

                           Textiles were first applied to roadways in the days of the Pharaohs Even they struggled with unstable soils which rutted or washed away They found that natural fibers, fabrics or vegetation improved road quality when mixed with soils, particularly unstable soils Only recently, however, have textiles been used and evaluated for modern road construction This fact sheet clarifies the confusion over terms and definitions of geotextiles, and discusses their common roadway and erosion control applications. In the 1920’s the state of South Carolina used a cotton textile to reinforce the underlying materials on a road with poor quality soils Evaluation several years later found the textile in good workable condition They continued their work in the area of reinforcement
and subsequently concluded that combining cotton and asphalt materials during construction
reduced cracking, raveling, and failure or- the pavement and the base course.

When synthetic fibers became more available in the 1960’s, textiles were considered more
seriously for roadway construction and maintenance As these new synthetic fabrics evolved, there was confusion over terms and definitions Textiles and membranes now have reasonably well accepted definitions in the construction industry, due mostly to the work of Dr Jean Pierre
fabric Non-woven geotextile fabric is more likely to stretch than woven geotextile It has the
ability to let water flow along the plane of the geotextile. The woven geotextile, which looks like burlap, is a sheet made of two sets of parallel strands systematically interlaced to form a
thin, flat fabric The strands may be slit film which are flat, or monofilaments which are round
(Figure 3) The way these two sets of yarns are interlaced determines the weave pattern which in turn determines the best application for that woven fabric.

Weave patterns come in a virtually unlimited variety which do affect some properties of the fabric However, a buyer will specify properties of the fabric such as porosity, strength and elongation, not weave pattern In general a woven geotextile is less likely to stretch, and does not let water flow as freely as non-woven geotextiles.

   Download :     Full Report (.pdf)