Guidelines for the determination of the long-term strength of geosynthetics for soil reinforcement

This document provides guidelines for the determination of the long-term strength of geosynthetics for soil reinforcement.

This document describes a method of deriving reduction factors for geosynthetic soil-reinforcement materials to account for creep and creep rupture, installation damage and weathering, and chemical and biological degradation. It is intended to provide a link between the test data and the codes for construction with reinforced soil.

The geosynthetics covered in this document include those whose primary purpose is reinforcement, such as geogrids, woven geotextiles and strips, where the reinforcing component is made from polyester (polyethylene terephthalate), polypropylene, high density polyethylene, polyvinyl alcohol, aramids and polyamides 6 and 6,6. This document does not cover the strength of joints or welds between geosynthetics, nor whether these might be more or less durable than the basic material. Nor does it apply to geomembranes, for example, in landfills. It does not cover the effects of dynamic loading. It does not consider any change in mechanical properties due to soil temperatures below 0 °C, nor the effect of frozen soil. The document does not cover uncertainty in the design of the reinforced soil structure, nor the human or economic consequences of failure.