Monitoring the performances of a geosynthetic-reinforced pavement during construction

Abstract

Geosynthetic materials have been widely used to enhance engineering practice in buildings, bridges, and pavements. As a kind of popular stabilization product, geogrid can be used for pavement reinforcement by serving as an additional tensile element. It has been demonstrated by many laboratory studies and numerical simulations that the reinforcement could significantly extend the fatigue life and improve the rutting resistance in flexible pavement. Meanwhile, geotextiles can provide soil separation, filtration and drainage; therefore, mitigating the freeze-thaw disturbances in the subgrade underneath the pavement structure. To study the application of geosynthetics in pavement structures in a more comprehensive aspect, a full-scale study was performed. A fibreglass geogrid which is specifically designed to reinforce the asphalt layer; as well as a geogrid composite material made of bi-axial geogrid bonded to a continuous filament non-woven geotextile, were installed in two field test sections. The geogrid was installed in the middle of the binder course within the asphalt layer, while the geogrid composite was placed at the interface of the base layer and subgrade in another section. The stiffness of the pavement was tested on each layer of the pavement structure during construction. As one of the major criteria to evaluate the pavement condition in North America, the International Roughness Index (IRI) was assessed to investigate the performances of geosynthetic-reinforced pavement during construction on asphalt binder course and surface course.