Durability of polyolefin geosynthetic drains

The German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) has established a testing guideline to assess the suitability of geosynthetic or geocomposite drain (GCD) elements for final landfill cover systems. In an earlier paper the uniform procedure according to the BAM guideline for determining long-term water flow capacity was described, and the structural stability of drain cores under creep was investigated. The extrapolation of creep curves is permissible only when it can be shown, over the extrapolated period (at least 100 years), that oxidative aging does not invoke any relevant changes in the polyolefin material. This can be shown by measuring antioxidant depletion and mechanical degradation of the drain cores and filter/ protection geotextiles in oven aging and water immersion tests. In this paper the results of such aging studies on three different GCD products are reported. Degradation of the tensile strength of HALS-stabilized polypropylene needle-punched nonwoven geotextiles (PP NWGTs) starts right from the beginning of the oven aging. This has to be taken into account for lifetime predictions based on residual tensile strength. The rate of oxidative degradation of NWGTs decreases significantly with increasing mass per area. Therefore the expected service life sets a limit on acceptable geotextile grammage. Antioxidant depletion in the drain cores, which are made of relatively thick PP strands or HDPE ribs, is about an order of magnitude slower than in filter and protection NWGTs, which are made of thin fibers. Service life values in excess of 100 years may be obtained for the products when the geotextiles and drain cores are properly stabilized and designed.