Drainage geocomposites: relation between water flow capacity and thickness in the long term

Abstract

The water flow capacity of a drainage geocomposite is intuitively related to its thickness, hence the importance of the creep knowledge. The creep of a geosynthetic is its time-dependent thickness decrease, under a constant stress, under compressive, or compressive + shearing loading. This work deals with four different drainage geocomposites types, each one with a different kind of geospacer. Their creep behaviour has been studied under simple compressive loading and also with a shearing loading. Then their water flow capacity in the long term has been evaluated in reasoning on their time-dependent thickness decrease. Reduction factors have been deduced of those results: they are very different according to the type of the geospacers (compressible or not).