Manufacturing Quality Control and Certification of Geotextiles Available to Purchase

Accurate reporting of characteristic geotextile properties in brochures, certifications, or trade journals requires a comprehensive quality control and certification program which includes systematic sampling and testing as well as proper management of test data and a knowledge of the required level of confidence required by the user. If any of these elements are missing, then the reported properties will be cloaked with uncertainty at best and, at worst, may be false and misleading. Therefore, to ensure accuracy, users must request a specific confidence level when requesting “minimum” values. In addition, manufacturers must establish a comprehensive database developed from a systematic sampling and testing program to ensure correct documentation of the characteristic properties of their products. This paper presents a comprehensive manufacturing quality control and certification protocol for geotextiles which, if followed by all manufacturers of geotextiles, would ensure statistical accuracy and uniformity in the reporting of the characteristic properties of geotextiles. Additionally, guidance is given to geotextile specifiers for the proper definition of “minimum”, so that geotextiles can be supplied which provide the desired level of confidence required by the specifier.