Review of accelerated aging methods for geotextiles

Department of Geotechnical Engineering, São Carlos School of Engineering (EESC), University of São Paulo (USP), São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil

^* Corresponding author: jlernandes@hotmail.com

Abstract

Accelerated aging methods are becoming increasingly common to evaluate geotextile properties in long-term behavior. Due to this, various manufacturers of these materials are asked to guarantee the useful life of the product, especially for components that cannot be easily inspected or may fail in service. Although the durability of geotextiles in non-demanding applications has traditionally been predicted from previous in-service experience, design for harsh environments or the long term requires a much better understanding of degradation mechanisms and the use of accelerated aging conditions to allow reliable useful life predictions to be made. Therefore, this paper aims to review accelerated aging methods according to the geotextile application environment that is commonly experienced in service and some techniques that have been developed for lifetime prediction in geotextiles according to different applications in engineering projects. The results of the review of the different papers analyzed show a clear division between conventional and non-conventional aging procedures. Moreover, characterization is defined according to the type of application of the geotextile. The review in this study, for geosynthetic design, provides general knowledge about accelerated aging methods using the main articles from the literature to evaluate the durability of geotextiles.