Geotextile-Reinforced Unpaved Road Design

Abstract

By providing reinforcement, geotextiles improve the performance of unpaved roads, and for a given traffic, the thickness of the aggregate layer can be reduced. This paper explores the mechanism of geotextile reinforcement of roadways, and a method is developed which enables the engineer to calculate the required thickness of aggregate layer and make a proper selection of the geotextile to be used. Charts are presented to assist in the design of geotextile-reinforced unpaved roads and to evaluate the reduction of aggregate thickness resulting from the use of a geotextile. Practical examples and comparisons with full scale tests are presented.