PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A BI-COMPONENT GEOTEXTILE IN ACCELERATED PAVEMENT TEST

Finland has a wide network of low-volume roads, which suffer from frost heave and insufficient drainage. We researched in an accelerated pavement test the performance of a bi-component geotextile to detect if it dries the pavement more efficiently than traditional solutions. A full-scale test structure was constructed with both traditional and bi-component geotextiles and loaded with the heavy vehicle simulator. Water contents and rutting on the asphalt surface was monitored during these loadings. The bi-component geotextile both accelerated drying after the lowering of water level and also kept the water content in a slightly lower (0.4 - 0.5 weight-%) level than in the reference area. Underneath the bi-component geotextile the water content remained higher than in the reference area. In spite of this, the permanent deformations (rutting) on the pavement surface were smaller in the bi-component geotextile area. So the life-time of a structure incorporating the bi-component geotextile will increase and maintenance costs will correspondingly decrease. For the covering abstract see ITRD E117244.