High-Strength Geotextiles in
Ultraheavy-Load Haul Roads
Robert A. Douglas, René Laprade, and Karl Lawrence
The heaviest trucks serving shovel-and-truck mining operations have
tripled in weight to more than 600 tonnes gross weight over the past
30 years. The design of haul roads to support these trucks is becoming
ever more challenging. An additional problem is the huge demand for
aggregates with which to construct these thick, wide roads. In this study
of the problem, a numerical modeling investigation was performed for
a 300-tonne-design axle on a granular pavement consisting of a capping
layer, base, and subbase (0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 m thick, respectively). Con-
ventional linearly elastic analyses and analyses not permitting tension
were carried out. While the results of the conventional elastic analysis
permitting tension had indicated that there was no reinforcing effect
with these geotextiles, the results of the no-tension analysis indicated
a significant reinforcement effect attributable to the inclusion of high-
strength geotextiles in the cross section. The results bring into ques-
tion the use of analyses permitting tension in the granular pavement
materials.
The roads serving the many shovel-and-truck mining operations
worldwide have been subjected to ever heavier trucks, with the
operating masses of the heaviest trucks having tripled in the past
30 years (1) (Figure 1). The current maximum mass is just over
600 tonnes—100 tonnes per tire. This study focused on a design
vehicle with a 300-tonne axle load on four tires.
The operations depend on haul road networks consisting of unsealed
aggregate pavements. Aggregate haul roads are used because of their
easy maintenance; much of the damage to aggregate haul roads can
be readily healed with grader maintenance.
The heavy loads and typically poor subgrades such as peat, organ-
ics, or soft silts and clays lead to the need for thick pavements. Usu-
ally the haul road is built on the weak material rather than this material
being removed and replaced. To remove the weak subgrade material
is to create more environmental damage, as there is the problem of
disposal, greatly increasing the footprint of the operation. There is
also often the problem of high water tables, which make excavation
infeasible.
Large quantities of aggregate are needed to construct haul roads.
Besides being thick, they are wide. Mining regulations require two-
lane roads to be at least 3.5 times the width of the largest vehicle
R. A. Douglas, Golder Associates Ltd., 6925 Century Avenue, Mississauga,
Ontario L5N 7K2, Canada. R. Laprade, TenCate Geosynthetics, 15 Cossar Drive,
Aurora, Ontario L4G 3N7, Canada. K. Lawrence, Golder Associates Ltd., 50
Crimea Street, Guelph, Ontario N1H 2Y6, Canada. Corresponding author: R. A.
Douglas, rdouglas@golder.com.
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board,
No. 2474, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington,
D.C., 2015, pp. 185–192.
DOI: 10.3141/2474-22
185
traveling on them (2). When that vehicle measures 10 m wide, a
road width approaching the width of a football field is required.
The final aspect of the challenge is the paucity of aggregate at
many mine sites. Sometimes waste rock is available, and if not acid
generating, it presents a good source of aggregate. At many sites,
however, sources of acceptable road-building materials are dwin-
dling and there is a responsibility to use as little as possible, in the
spirit of sustainability.
Building with geosynthetics is seen as possibly providing a way
to reduce the requirement for aggregate. There have been numerous
investigations of geosynthetics reinforcing embankments (3–6), as
well as numerous investigations of geosynthetics reinforcing pave-
ments (7–12). However, the weight of the typical truck (Figure 1)
and the thickness of the fill comprising the road and embankment
have pushed design into unfamiliar circumstances.
Pavements and embankments are designed differently. Pavement
design is more concerned with live loads than dead loads, and the
number of repetitions of the design load (traffic) is a primary issue.
Embankment design is more concerned with dead loads than live loads
(usually), and overall slope and base stability are issues. In concept,
as a fill used by vehicles is thickened, at what point does it become
more embankment than pavement?
The answer depends on the axle load of the design vehicle. The
vertical stress caused by the wheel load can be modeled by using
the Boussinesq equation (13) and compared with the vertical stress
imposed by the weight of saturated soil above a point in the subgrade.
Where the curves for the two vertical stress distributions cross, the
depth where a pavement becomes an embankment can be identified
(Figures 2 and 3). There is a smooth, gradual transition from pave-
ment to embankment, but the depth where the curves cross can be
used as an indicator of the change from one to the other. Thus, for a
300-tonne axle load, pavement design methods are more appropri-
ate than embankment fill design methods down to a depth of more
than 3 m, according to the concept.
There is a gap:
• Research investigations published on pavements reinforced with
geosynthetics have typically dealt with conventional axle loads, about
10 tonnes per axle, rather than the very heavy loads now typical of
mining haul roads; and
• Research investigations published on fills of, say, 2 or 3 m or
more in height have treated them like embankments rather than
pavements.
Therefore, the present project was developed to examine heavily
loaded thick fills reinforced with high-strength geotextiles and ana-
lyzed with a pavement design method rather than an embankment
design method.
 186 Transportation Research Record 2474

800 Axle load (kN/m2)

Gross operating mass [truck plus

0 100 200 300 400 500

nominal payload (tonnes)]

0
600

400 1

Depth (m)
200
2

0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
3
Year of introduction

FIGURE 1   Rated operating mass of one manufacturer’s off-road

mining trucks, by year of model introduction (1).
4

FIGURE 3   Depth where vertical stress due to live load equals
stress due to dead load: pavements are above and embankments
Design Method are below this level.

The critical strain method (CSM) (2) was specifically developed

to facilitate the design of extremely heavily loaded haul roads. The
method stemmed from the observation made by Thompson and
Visser (14) and others that operationally successful haul roads had
vertical strains of approximately 2,000 µε or less. At that level of
strain, about 1 million passes of the design axle load was possible,
and a road capable of sustaining that amount of traffic was consid-
ered adequate in the context. A limiting criterion relating the number
of passes of the design axle load to the peak vertical strain in the road
section under that design load was later developed (2):
80, 000 3.7
N=
 ε 
where N is the maximum number of passes of design axle load and
ε is the maximum vertical strain in the road cross section.
Vertical stress (kPa)
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
0 start the cycle again.
In routine design, the steps are as follows:
1. Determine the road’s intended life, the number of passes of the
design axle loading.
2. Decide on a trial cross section that comprises the layer thick-
nesses, moduli, and Poisson’s ratios.
3. Perform a numerical analysis to determine vertical strains at
key depths throughout the road cross section.
4. Check those strains against the criterion in Equation 1.
5. If all strains are very low compared with the criterion, the design
(1) is inefficient. Improve the design by making one or more pavement
layers thinner.
6. If the peak strains in each layer are just less than the criterion,
the design is acceptable and efficient. Accept it as the interim design
and go to Step 8.
7. If any of the peak strains is greater than the criterion, the design
is unacceptable. Develop a new trial design and start the cycle again.
8. Check the possibility of shear failure in the pavement structure.
If the factor of safety is insufficient, develop a new trial design and

1
Procedure
2
The investigation was designed to examine a cross section of a typi-
Depth (m)

cal haul road, first with no high-strength geotextiles and then with
3 them, to determine the difference in performance, if any could be
observed. The baseline performance for the road cross section with
4 no geotextiles would be established with the CSM, facilitated with
an elastic layer analysis program, KENPAVE (15; software included
5 with book), a program used in day-to-day practice. KENPAVE cannot
properly model geotextile-built roads, so the results of KENPAVE
6 would then be compared with the output of FLAC3D (16), a more
sophisticated numerical method software, which is capable of model-
Boussinesq stress Stress due to dead load
ing geotextiles. Assuming the comparison was favorable, FLAC3D
FIGURE 2   Vertical stresses due to live load and dead load, against would then be used to analyze cross sections with varying placement
depth. Live load stresses are for 300-tonne axle with dual tires. depths of geotextiles.
Douglas, Laprade, and Lawrence
The specific steps were as follows:
1. Select a typical heavy haul road cross section.
2. Use KENPAVE to analyze the cross section for strains and
determine the design number of passes (Equation 1).
3. Run FLAC3D for the same pavement cross section.
4. Compare displacements, stresses, and strains at key locations
in the cross section for KENPAVE and FLAC3D.
5. If the comparison is not favorable, conclude that there is a
problem in one or the other model (i.e., in either the KENPAVE
or FLAC3D modeling of the problem). Abandon the project or
redesign.
6. If the comparison is favorable, run FLAC3D for the following
geotextile-built cross sections:
Case 1. Geotextile at capping layer–base interface,
Case 2. Geotextile at base–subbase interface,
Case 3. Geotextile at subbase–subgrade interface,
Case 4. Combination of Case 1 and Case 2, and
Case 5. Combination of Case 1, Case 2, and Case 3.
7. If the comparison is favorable, run FLAC3D for a number of
other cases where the geotextile is at various depths, on the basis of
what is learned from Cases 1 through 5 and recommendations in the
literature.
FIGURE 4   Element mesh for FLAC3D solution. Loaded area is the pink rectangle, which represents one-half of one tire. The
apparently sunken top face is an illusion generated by the flaring-out of the element boundaries; the top surface is actually flat.
187
The characterization of the changes in performance is to be reported
in the design number of passes, determined from Equation 1 for
each case.
FLAC3D: Modeling the Problem
FLAC3D is commercial numerical modeling software used in geo-
technical analysis. It is capable of large strain modeling and the
modeling of thin sheets such as geotextiles.
The mesh created for the project had 330,000 elements. Taking
advantage of the problem’s symmetry in two directions, the mesh was
built to model one quadrant of the pavement, as shown in Figure 4.
Road Cross Section and Design Axle Load
The road cross section studied was typical of heavy-load haul roads
serving Canadian oil sands operations. The cross section consisted
of three layers of aggregate placed on a peat subgrade (Table 1).
The design axle comprised two dual-tired wheels on a single axle,
for a total of four tires. The axle load was 300 tonnes (2,900 kPa).
KENPAVE modeled the loading as uniformly distributed pressures
188 Transportation Research Record 2474

TABLE 1   Assumed Haul Road Cross Section

Assumed Layer Assumed Modulus Assumed

Layer Material Thickness (m) (MPa) Poisson’s Ratio

Capping Crushed rock 0.5 250 0.3

Base Crushed gravel 1.0 100 0.3
Subbase Pit run sand and gravel 1.5 50 0.3
Subgrade Soft clay, peat, or organics Infinite    35a 0.49

a
Corresponds to California bearing ratio (CBR) = 3.

Vertical strain (microstrains) Geotextile Characteristics

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000
0.0 The modeled high-strength geotextile had the characteristics shown
in Table 2. These values were taken from the manufacturer’s litera-
ture, confirmed with a limited number of wide strip tensile tests per-
1.0
formed for this project. Cross-machine direction values were used
in the numerical modeling, specifically a modulus of 1,310 kN/m
Depth (m)

2.0 and a Poisson’s ratio of 0.30.

3.0
4.0
5.0
under center of tire centered between tires
FIGURE 5   Vertical strains with depth in the design cross section.
Peak vertical strain is approximately 4,600 m«, which corresponds
to 40,000 passes of the design axle load.
of 920 kPa acting on two circular areas 510 mm in radius, 1,270 mm
center to center. FLAC3D modeled the loading as uniformly distrib-
uted pressures of 920 kPa, acting on two rectangular contact areas
each 1,016 mm wide by 798 mm long (so that the contact areas in
the two approaches were equivalent), 1,270 mm center to center.
With KENPAVE, the maximum vertical strain induced in a cross
section of the assumed design by the 300-tonne design axle was
estimated to be approximately 4,600 µε, corresponding to a traffic
volume of 39,000 passes of the design axle load (Figure 5). The
design is inefficient in the sense that apart from the spike in strain at
the top of the base, a maximum strain of about 3,000 µε is suitable
for the rest of the pavement. If the spike could be reduced through
a change in design (e.g., thicker or stronger capping layer), a more
efficient design would result, and also a greater number of passes
(190,000 passes) of the design axle load would be possible.
Comparison of FLAC3D and
Elastic Layer Analysis
The results for the model runs of KENPAVE and FLAC3D are given
in Table 3. There is general agreement between the two sets of results,
with maximum differences of 20%, 6%, and 15% for the vertical dis-
placements, stresses, and strains, respectively. This was considered
sufficient agreement between the two methods of analysis.
FLAC3D Results for Cases 1 Through 5:
Geotextile at Layer Interfaces
FLAC3D was run for Cases 1 through 5 for the road cross section
characterized by Table 1 and the assumed geotextile characteristics
listed in Table 4.
The results are shown in Tables 5 through 7. It can be seen that
for Cases 1 to 5, there is little or no difference between the ver­
tical displacements, vertical stresses, or vertical strains. There is
also little or no difference between the pavement’s response (verti-
cal displacements, stresses, or strains) when it has no geotextile and
when it does.
It appears that either the subgrade was sufficiently strong [California
bearing ratio (CBR) = 3], or the pavement was sufficiently strong
that the strains were small and stresses in the geotextile layer(s) were
not mobilized. Therefore, a pilot run of FLAC3D was made with an
extremely weak subgrade.

TABLE 2   Geotextile Characteristics

Poisson’s Ratio
Tensile Strength Tensile Modulus
Data Source Direction (kN/m) @ Strain (kN/m) @ 2% Strain @ 5% Strain

Wide strip tensile test results (ASTM D4595), Cross-machine 74 @ 6.7 1,440 0.39 0.28
average of 6 tests performed for this project
Manufacturer’s literature Cross-machine NA 1,310 @ 2% NA NA

Note: NA = not available.

Douglas, Laprade, and Lawrence 189

TABLE 3   Comparison of KENPAVE and FLAC3D Results with No Geotextile

Centered Between Tires Beneath Center of Tire

KENPAVE Results FLAC3D Results KENPAVE Results FLAC3D Results

Vert. Vert. Vert. Vert. Vert. Vert. Vert. Vert. Vert. Vert. Vert. Vert.
Depth Displacement Stress Strain Displacement Stress Strain Displacement Stress Strain Displacement Stress Strain
(m) (mm) (kPa) (µε) (mm) (kPa) (µε) (mm) (kPa) (µε) (mm) (kPa) (µε)

0.03 10   0 −90 10 70 −80 11 920 1,300 10 920 1,500

0.54 10 360 3,100 10 380 3,400 10 480 4,500 9 450 4,300
1.55 8 130 2,800 7 130 2,800 8 120 2,500 7 120 2,500
3.07 5 50 1,200 4 50 1,200 5 40 1,100 4 40 1,100

Note: Vert. = vertical.

TABLE 4   FLAC3D Results: Legend FLAC3D Results for Cases 6 and 7:
Weak Subgrade, Geotextile at
Name Description
Layer Interfaces
No Geo No geogrid or geotextile
Many investigations have indicated that the reinforcement effect
Case 1 Geogrid at capping layer–base interface
attributed to the geosynthetic does not occur for strong subgrades.
Case 2 Geogrid at base–subbase interface
It appeared that the pavement design studied above was strong and
Case 3 Geogrid at subbase–subgrade interface
stiff, including the subgrade. Strains were not enough to mobilize
Case 4 Geogrid at capping layer–base interface and base–subbase any significant reinforcement by the geotextile layer(s).
interface
In response, two additional runs of FLAC3D were made: Cases 6
Case 5 Geogrid at capping layer–base interface, base–subbase
interface, and subbase–subgrade interface
and 7. The characteristics of these cases are shown in Table 4.
Because of the significant decrease in the subgrade modulus, there
Case 6 No geogrid or geotextile (subgrade modulus reduced to
5 MPa) was an expected increase in vertical displacement, which was
Case 7 Geogrid at capping layer–base interface, base–subbase approximately double when Case 7 was compared with Case 5
interface, and subbase–subgrade interface (subgrade (see Table 5). Subgrade stresses (depth = 3.03 m) were much
modulus reduced to 5 MPa) less and subgrade strains were much more for Case 7 compared
Case 8 No geogrid or geotextile (subgrade modulus reduced to with Case 5, again, as expected. However, there was little or no
5 MPa); no tensile strength difference between the pavement’s vertical displacements, verti-
Case 9 Geogrid at capping layer–base interface, base–subbase cal stresses, or vertical strains when Case 6 was compared with
interface, and subbase–subgrade interface (subgrade
Case 7, a finding that indicated little or no reinforcement by the
modulus reduced to 5 MPa); no tensile strength
geotextile layers.

TABLE 5   FLAC3D Results: Displacements

Depth (m) No Geo Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 Case 5 Case 6 Case 7 Case 8 Case 9

Vertical Displacement (mm) Between Tires

0.00 9.82 9.81 9.80 9.81 9.80 9.79 19.27 19.13 27.14 26.63
0.25 9.90 9.90 9.89 9.89 9.89 9.87 19.42 19.28 27.54 27.05
0.53 9.49 9.49 9.48 9.48 9.47 9.46 19.05 18.91 27.29 26.78
1.00 8.07 8.07 8.06 8.06 8.06 8.05 17.69 17.56 26.30 25.74
1.53 6.91 6.91 6.91 6.90 6.91 6.90 16.57 16.45 25.58 25.03
2.25 5.32 5.32 5.32 5.31 5.32 5.31 15.12 15.00 24.53 24.02
3.03 4.23 4.23 4.23 4.22 4.23 4.22 13.96 13.87 23.67 23.23
Vertical Displacement (mm) Center of Tire
0.00 10.41 10.40 10.40 10.40 10.39 10.38 19.77 19.63 27.62 27.17
0.25 9.93 9.93 9.92 9.92 9.91 9.90 19.35 19.22 27.31 26.85
0.53 9.20 9.20 9.19 9.19 9.19 9.18 18.66 18.53 26.72 26.25
1.00 7.63 7.63 7.62 7.62 7.62 7.61 17.15 17.02 25.51 25.03
1.53 6.56 6.56 6.56 6.55 6.56 6.55 16.11 15.99 24.86 24.38
2.25 5.11 5.11 5.12 5.10 5.12 5.10 14.79 14.68 23.91 23.47
3.03 4.10 4.10 4.11 4.10 4.11 4.10 13.71 13.61 23.13 22.76
190 Transportation Research Record 2474

TABLE 6   FLAC3D Results: Stresses

Depth (m) No Geo Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 Case 5 Case 6 Case 7 Case 8 Case 9

Vertical Stress (kPa) Between Tires

0.00 66.78 66.74 66.79 66.78 66.75 66.75 66.68 66.65 61.86 68.28
0.25 367.04 366.52 367.11 367.05 366.59 366.60 365.60 365.23 351.76 357.57
0.53 382.03 381.29 382.22 382.07 381.49 381.53 376.37 375.99 316.59 338.10
1.00 243.19 243.06 243.34 243.28 243.21 243.30 229.89 230.23 172.15 179.78
1.53 134.38 134.41 133.76 134.51 133.79 133.92 112.02 111.91 95.83 93.25
2.25 76.68 76.70 76.70 76.79 76.72 76.83 46.04 46.52 55.30 51.79
3.03 45.50 45.50 45.56 44.79 45.57 44.86 17.08 16.50 33.81 30.68
Vertical Stress (kPa) Center of Tire
0.00 920.17 920.23 920.18 920.17 920.23 920.23 920.08 920.14 923.94 924.44
0.25 774.75 775.00 774.81 774.76 775.06 775.07 773.41 773.78 785.25 789.80
0.53 451.18 449.81 451.36 451.21 449.98 450.02 445.91 444.87 408.82 419.17
1.00 232.04 232.12 232.23 232.11 232.31 232.38 219.63 220.21 172.50 174.41
1.53 120.53 120.58 120.01 120.64 120.07 120.18 99.73 99.71 89.33 86.59
2.25 69.95 69.97 69.97 70.05 69.99 70.09 41.57 42.06 52.28 49.09
3.03 43.26 43.26 43.31 42.85 43.32 42.91 16.49 16.13 32.44 29.95

TABLE 7   FLAC3D Results: Strains

Depth (m) No Geo Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 Case 5 Case 6 Case 7 Case 8 Case 9

Vertical Strain (%) Between Tires

0.00 −0.08 −0.08 −0.08 −0.08 −0.08 −0.08 −0.11 −0.11 −0.28 −0.28
0.25 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.05 0.05 0.02 0.03
0.53 0.34 0.34 0.34 0.34 0.34 0.34 0.33 0.33 0.27 0.28
1.00 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.24 0.24 0.16 0.17
1.53 0.28 0.28 0.28 0.28 0.28 0.28 0.26 0.26 0.19 0.19
2.25 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.15 0.15 0.11 0.10
3.03 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.11 0.12 0.11 0.29 0.29 0.66 0.60
Vertical Strain (%) Center of Tire
0.00 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.12 0.12 0.06 0.07
0.25 0.23 0.23 0.23 0.23 0.23 0.23 0.21 0.21 0.20 0.20
0.53 0.43 0.43 0.43 0.43 0.43 0.43 0.42 0.42 0.37 0.38
1.00 0.24 0.24 0.24 0.24 0.24 0.24 0.23 0.23 0.16 0.16
1.53 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.24 0.23 0.17 0.17
2.25 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.14 0.14 0.10 0.09
3.03 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.28 0.27 0.63 0.56

Pavement Layer Tensions
The results above were derived from numerical models. They are
not observations of reality. The models’ outputs were examined
more closely, and it was found that significant tensions were pre-
dicted for the capping layer, particularly beneath the wheel loads
(Figure 6).
The FLAC3D modeling configuration that had been set up, permit-
ting tension in granular materials, may have led to the low mobiliza-
tion of any reinforcement effect by the geotextile layers. To test this
understanding, FLAC3D was configured so that tensile stresses were
not permitted in the pavement granular materials. Given the time con-
straints in preparing this paper, only a preliminary examination of the
issue was possible.
Two more runs of FLAC3D were made, Cases 8 and 9. Table 8
presents the results, reporting the maximum vertical strains in the
base layer and at the top of the subgrade. The base layer strains were
the maximum of any granular layer of the pavement for these cases.
Table 8 also presents the estimated design life for each pavement,
expressed as the number of passes of the design axle load, calcu-
lated with Equation 1. The actual design life is the lesser of the two
values calculated.
When Cases 6 and 7 are compared with Cases 8 and 9, it can be
seen that by employing the no-tension analysis, there is a dramatic
drop in the predicted design life of the pavements. A more realistic
modeling of the behavior of the pavement—the no-tension model—
predicts a design life of about one-fifth that of the conventional
linearly elastic model.
 Douglas, Laprade, and Lawrence 191

1,500 that modeling. In this case, it appears that the actual service life of
the road, expressed in passages of the design axle, would be just
one-fifth of that predicted (10,000 passes compared with 54,000
parallel to axle (kPa)

1,000 passes).
Horizontal stress

Depth (m)
Only two tires of a dual wheel were modeled and the results were
0.03 dramatically different when tension was not allowed in the granular
500 pavement materials. Going further, if both dual wheels (all four tires
0.26
on the full axle) are modeled, further differences may be observed.
0.48
The modeling would account for any effects of the upward displace-
0 ment of the road under the center of the axle. The present model did
0 1 2 3 4
not account for these effects.
Further, it has been shown that invoking a no-tension rule reversed
–500
Distance from center of tire (m) the earlier conclusion that there was no reinforcing effect attributable
(a)
to the high-strength geotextile. In this particular case, there would be
a 50% increase in the design life the road, in the number of passes of
the design axle load.
1,500
Horizontal stress across

Conclusions
1,000
Depth (m)
The conditions of this numerical modeling investigation were as
axle (kPa)

0.03 follows:
500
0.26 • The design vehicle had a 300-tonne axle load on four tires whose
0.48 contact patches each had an area of 0.81 m2/tire, and a uniformly
0 distributed pressure of 920 kPa.
0 1 2 3 4 • The road cross section consisted from top to bottom of a cap-
ping layer, a base layer, and a subbase layer (0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 m thick,
–500 respectively) resting on the subgrade.
Distance from center of tire (m) • The subgrade was modeled as having a CBR of 3 and 0.5,
(b) corresponding to moduli of 35 MPa and 5 MPa, respectively.
• The road structure and subgrade were modeled as being linearly
FIGURE 6   Horizontal stresses at different depths: (a) parallel to
axle and (b) across axle. elastic.
• Analyses with and without tension were completed.

Based on these conditions, the following are concluded:

Further, when Case 8 is compared with Case 9, it can be seen that
installing the high-strength geotextile at the three interfaces increases
the design life of the pavement by 50%, from 10,000 passes to 15,000
passes. With the more realistic modeling, a reinforcement effect is
observed.
Discussion of results
• Invoking a no-tension rule for the pavement materials dramati-
cally reduced the predicted design life of the road.
• Including stiff geotextiles in the cross section at the capping
layer or base, base or subbase, and subbase or subgrade interfaces
increased the predicted design life of the road by 50%.
The following practices are recommended:

These results are for one particular pavement and, as such, are only • The investigation should be extended to include no-tension
preliminary. However, they serve to illustrate how unrealistic mod- analyses of cross sections of the pavement subjected to loading by
eling can lead to unrealistically optimistic designs stemming from the full axle (all four tires).

TABLE 8   No-Tension Analysis Results

Maximum Strain Pavement Design

Maximum Strain Implied Number of in Subgrade Implied Number of Life (number of
Subgrade Surface Deflection in Base Layer Passes of Design Between Tires Passes of Design passes of design
Case CBR Under Tire (mm) Under Tire (µε) Axle Load (Eq. 1) (µε) Axle Load (Eq. 1) axle load)

No geo 3 10 4,300 50,000 1,200 5,600,000 50,000

Case 5 3 10 4,300 50,000 1,100 7,700,000 50,000
Case 6 0.5 20 4,200 54,000 2,900 210,000 54,000
Case 7 0.5 20 4,200 54,000 2,900 210,000 54,000
Case 8 0.5 28 3,700 87,000 6,600 10,000 10,000
Case 9 0.5 27 3,800 79,000 6,000 15,000 15,000

Note: geo = geotextile; eq. = equation.

192
• Other cross sections with different pavement layer thicknesses
should be examined, together with heavier axle loads.
• A full-scale trial should be mounted to verify the displacements,
stresses, and strains predicted by the no-tension modeling.
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The Committee for the 11th International Conference on Low-Volume Roads
peer-reviewed this paper.