Durability of Geosynthetics for Highway Applications
This online engineering PDH course presents a study that addresses various aspects of geosynthetic durability to develop procedures that could be used to predict long-term strength losses of geosynthetics used in highway applications. These procedures are essential to designers for allowing tensile capacity for geosynthetics used primarily in mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) retaining walls, reinforced soil slopes, and foundation stabilization.
This study was initiated to allow voiced concerns that stress-cracking potential was not being considered in developing the allowable tension load capacity for design when using high-density polyethylene (HDPE) geogrids. Stress cracking is a potential mode of failure occurring in thermoplastic materials that are under a sustained stress significantly lower than the material’s room temperature yield strength, resulting in quasi-brittle fracture of the material. This is also known as slow crack growth and environmental stress cracking (ESC) when in contact with certain aqueous solutions.
This 1 PDH online course is applicable to all civil engineers, highway design professionals, transportation planners, material manufacturers and all personnel interested in learning about geosynthetics for highway applications.
This PE continuing education course is intended to provide you with the following specific knowledge and skills:
- Developing testing protocols necessary to quantify any strength reduction due to aging or stress mechanisms for geosynthetics
- Developing testing protocols for confined stress-strain testing, which could more accurately characterize key engineering properties
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