The role of undrained clay soil subgrade properties in controlling deformations in geomembranes

Abstract

Strains were evaluated in a 1.5 mm HDPE geomembrane from overlying coarse uniform drainage gravel when placed above six different compacted clayey soils while keeping pressure, protection, loading rate equal. In each case, a protection layer consisting of 400 g/m2 nonwoven geotextile was placed over the geomembrane. Vertical load of 300 kPa was applied in a relatively short duration. A photogrammetry procedure was used to develop a digital elevation model for each deformed geomembrane surface and the distribution of resulting strain in the geomembrane was evaluated on a percent area basis. The proportion of the overall geomembrane area in which the localised strain exceeded 3% was related to the compacted water content, index soil properties, and undrained shear strength of the six different clayey soils. It was found that an increase in moulding moisture content resulted in increased geomembrane strain in all cases, but the magnitude of the increase in strain varied considerably, depending on the plasticity and silt content of the soil used.