Geotextile installation contributes to road, drainage, and soil stabilization projects as well. But while these applications can provide a lot of significant benefits, many geotextile failures are based on installation mistakes that affect the performance and durability of geotextile fabric systems. These mistakes matter, and therefore should be understood properly by every contractor and engineer.
Using the Wrong Type of Geotextile
A common error is selecting the wrong material type for a geotextile project that involves filtration. Non-woven geotextile membranes are used often for filtration and drainage, while woven geotextile is used for reinforcement and load support. Even worse is when some of these projects try pre-emptively to mix these dual functions, ending up using the wrong type of plastic. In cases where PP geotextile and PET geotextile are mistaken for each other, there goes the tensile strength, as well as overall system stability! Make contractor compliance stricter and require matching material being used to project needs.
Poor Site Preparation Before Installation
Sometimes site preparation is a rushjob affair. Still others, such as sharp stones, are formidable risks of damaging geotextile fabric during installation. Possibly, the site is not void of errant particles, so they are trapped beneath the fabric blanket. Ultimately, a clean, leveled base surface is advantageous to the long run durability of the entire system for a variety of referring reasons including increased permeability and flow rate in drainage systems, correct performance of the separation layers between soil layers, and the like.
Incorrect Overlapping and Seaming
Another of the most frequent errors are concerned with the overlap of geotextile sheets, which are to be lapped over in a specified type manner. They are there to prevent the mixing of the underlying soils. One small gap, and the entire geotextile system is doomed. In addition to overlaps, there is the matter of seaming geotextile, and primarily, compliance with project specification relating to the seaming procedure as a general matter. Heat-bonded geotextile and the needle-punched type require extra attention in the manner of “joining.” A bad or weak seam directly affects the CBR puncture strength performance in the field.
Wrong Installation Direction and Placement
Many installers are lax about seeing that the actual roll the geotextile fabric was wound with is correctly pointed in the right directions before orientation is ensured and subsequently placed and laid for installation. This could then affect the drainage performance and filtration of the fabric. Continuous filament geotextile does have particular properties that predispose it to a certain orientation. If, otherwise, placed incorrectly, the water flows unevenly over the fabric if at all, reducing the effectiveness of the filter effectively making it more of a drainage & filtration geotextile that needs following and strict conformance to orientation.
Ignoring Drainage and Permeability Requirements
Another similar sin to the last is similar, where the designer on the project design tends to a great extent not recognising and not being adept at drainage and the matter of establishing the permeability and flow rate on the general project. Greatest is the blunder of establishing requirements for the geotextile with regard to thickness, without with a nod to water drainage or not. The frustration is that while the geotextile fabric strength is proven by the technical data from the supplier, it must really not be discount the need for considering the matter of drainage there too. Better to dwell on the composite while remembering to evaluate both filtration and drainage together.
Improper Storage and Weather Exposure
Geotextile materials are also variable due to time of exposure to UV light, and while it helps also should be deemed to use UV resistant geotextile, of course, this is now a lesser offense of disregarding fundamental rules of optimum storage conditions as well as the installation prior to the longawaited “go-ahead.” Beyond that is the observation that if the roll gets some rain and dust in it, along other, while being unrolled, it is far from becoming the actually good installation that is finally delivered out of sheer luck to miss the longterm structural damage period.