Woven Polypropylene Geotextile

About Geotextiles

Geotextiles are often described as fabrics or synthetic materials which are placed between the soil and a pipe, gabion, or retaining wall: to enhance water movement and retard soil movement, and as a blanket to add reinforcement and separation. Geotextiles perform three basic functions in stabilizing aggregate sections: separation, drainage and reinforcement. A Geotextile should consist of a stable network that retains its relative structure during handling, placement, and long-term service. Other terms that are used by the industry for similar materials and applications are Geotextile cloth, agricultural fabric, and Geosynthetics.

 There are various types of Geotextiles. We offer the woven type Geotextiles; these are highly permeable and extremely tough. Since Geotextile fabric is a petrochemical-based polymer that is essentially chemically and biologically inert, it will resist decomposition by bacterial or fungal action. However, these fabrics are susceptible to deterioration from ultraviolet (UV) light.

How Geotextile Fabric Works

Geotextile fabric applications are designed to keep soil and gravel (or other earthen materials) separate. By keeping the soil and gravel separated, the fabric improves the stability, load bearing capacity, and drainage of the site.

A Geotextile fabric installed as a layer between gravel and soil layers forms a barrier against the movement or intermixing of the soil and gravel (see Figure 4). In applications where gravel is placed on top of a soil layer, as in conventional driveways, farm roads, or gravelled areas, the separation provided by the fabric helps the gravel maintain its position and design load bearing capacity throughout its life.

A Geotextile fabric separating a gravel layer from the underlying soil material.

When properly designed and installed the fabric can help distribute loads from animal and vehicular traffic. When installed between two types of materials, or even between two layers of the same material, the fabric is placed into tension, which helps reduce the impact of a localized load, and redistributes the localized pressures over a larger area of sub grade material (soil or other earthen material in the lower layer). Overall, there is great improvement in the support properties of the system. Subsequently, the need for additional gravel each spring is greatly reduced, if not eliminated. However, timely maintenance is important to the longevity of the application area.

Drainage is enhanced when the gravel and soil are kept separate, and the soil is not allowed to fill in the voids in the gravel layer. Water movement within the surrounding soil or earthen materials can be improved and managed since the fabric allows water to pass through it, and thus does not impede the vertical or horizontal movement of water. Also, if the soil layer above or below the Geotextile is impermeable, the fabric may act as a conduit for water flow.

Stabilizing effect of a Geotextile fabric (at top) and the subsequent redistribution of the wheel load (at bottom). (Modified from Agricultural Engineering Soil Mechanics).

Agricultural Applications for Geotextile Fabric

The original development of Geotextiles focused largely on non-agricultural uses: subgrade, roadbed, and parking lot construction and stabilization; soil reinforcement; erosion and sedimentation control; and subsurface drainage and filters. However, there are many related agricultural applications, including: lanes to pasture paddocks, feedlots, and barnyards; livestock watering areas; silage bag and round bale storage and feeder areas; driveways for farmsteads and other farm roads; drainage ditch and stream crossing areas; subsurface drainage tubing connections; aprons for open-side livestock barns; and to extend existing concrete, paved, or gravelled areas.

A word of caution should be noted here. Special considerations may need to be made in areas where livestock manure is stored and the soil material underlying or adjacent to the Geotextile fabric is permeable. Since the fabric improves drainage, there may be some potential for rapid movement of manure, nutrients, bacteria, etc., into the surrounding soil, and possibly into an adjacent water supply.

Railroad applications

Selecting the proper gravel to use on top of the Geotextile fabric is very important. In Ohio, the most practical source of gravel is dolomite and limestone bedrock. A mixture of large (1.5 to 2 inch diameter) and small gravel sizes works best for vehicular traffic. For livestock traffic areas, if one well-mixed grade of gravel is not available, consider using two grades of gravel, one larger than the other, and increase the amount of fines. Place the larger gravel on the fabric first, and then place the smaller gravel over the larger gravel.

Once properly placed on the fabric, smoothed and packed, the gravel mixture forms a hard packed surface that supports both equipment and animal traffic. Larger stone alone will not pack easily, will contain large open voids, and will not allow ease of travel by livestock. Gravel that is too small will not provide sufficient structural support. When the gravel layer is saturated, animals and equipment can sink into the layer.

5.Installation

Proper installation of Geotextile fabric with gravel, soil, or other earthen material as a topcoat is best accomplished when the soil at the site is dry. The following is a series of tips to ensure proper site preparation, Geotextile fabric installation, and cover material application at the site. The first step, however, is to select the proper Geotextile fabric for the application.

6. Maintenance

Since Geotextile fabric provides separation between soil and gravel, or other earthen materials, the annual addition of gravel is usually not necessary as with conventional driveways and farm roads. If the area where the Geotextile fabric was installed receives manure, it can be scraped periodically with a skid loader or box scraper. Gravel is sometimes removed during this process, and it should be replaced. The original depth of gravel should be maintained throughout the life of the system. Repairs should be made on an as needed, but timely, basis.

We offer these fabrics in 2 variants

Light Weight: Increasing from 80 to 200 GSM, Neo lightweights are used primarily for separation to prevent good quality granular fill intermixing with the poorer soil below. Typical uses include new highways, car parks, airport runways, under stone foundation layers for new buildings etc with a mximum width of 5.4 meter

Heavy Weight: With possible tensile strengths in excess of 200kN/m and Fabric GSM above 200, Neo heavyweights Geotextiles are used in applications where the loadings are severe. Uses include short term basal reinforcement, coastal erosion schemes or areas requiring general soil stabilisation with a maximum width of 4.5 meter

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