Reduction in geosynthetics ultimate tensile strength caused by the dropping of recycled backfilling materials

Abstract

To handle the sustainable construction required by the modern world, designers of geosynthetic reinforced soil structures should search for alternative backfill materials, such as recycled materials. Since installation damage is responsible for significant changes in geosynthetic stress-strain behavior, the ones caused by the recycled ones must be carefully assessed and quantified. This study aims to assess the damage to geosynthetics caused by the backfill material-dropping process. Four geosynthetics (two geogrids and two non-woven geotextiles) and five types of recycled aggregates (with different grain-size distributions) were tested. The experimental program consists of laying the geosynthetic on the area of the recycling plant and the individual launching of the tested backfill materials (using a backhoe loader) from two drop heights: 1.0 m and 2.0 m. The geosynthetic samples were then exhumed to obtain specimens, perform wide-width tensile tests, and assess their ultimate tensile strength. The geotextiles experienced reductions in the property of interest for all scenarios investigated. These reductions were higher than the ones experienced by the geogrids. Within some limitations, the results show that the damage increased as the maximum grain size of the backfill increased. Further investigations are required using sophisticated statistical analysis adopting a broader database.