Testing and Performance of Geosynthetics in Subsurface Drainage





Overview

The effectiveness of subsurface drainage in prolonging the service life of a pavement system has been the subject of discussion for many years across several disciplines involved in the planning, designing, construction, and maintenance of pavement, and other engineered systems. One of the first workshops that I attended on first coming to work for the New York State Department of Transportation over thirty years ago was presented by the Federal Highway Administration in which the benefits of good subsurface drainage in a pavement system were promoted. Even at that time there were many different components of a drainage system that contributed to its overall performance. With the advent of geosynthetics, and their incorporation into subsurface drainage systems, another component has been added that must be understood in order to insure proper performance.


As indicated above, the subject crosses many disciplines. It is with this in mind that four different committees of two different organizations jointly sponsored this symposium. Those co-sponsoring committees and their organizations were: Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee A2K06 on Subsurface Drainage, TRB Committee A2K07 on Geosynthetics, ASTM Committee D18 on Soil and Rock, and ASTM Committee D35 on Geosynthetics. The purpose of the symposium was to explore the experiences of the authors in the testing and performance of geosynthetics used in sub- surface drainage applications. The symposium was divided into three sessions: Session I--Field Performance Studies; Session II--Pavement Design and Drainage; Session III--Testing. This spe- cial technical publication (STP) is divided into these three sections.


Download
*