Three Decades of Geosynthetics in India, 5-6 November 2015, New Delhi, India

Utilization of Geosynthetic
Reinforcement for Construction
and Rehabilitation of Bituminous
Pavement
Satish Pandey, U.K. Guru Vittal and Sunil Jain
CSIR-Central Road Research Institute, India.

Abstract
The advent of geosynthetics has dramatically transformed the practice of geotechnical
engineering around the world. Boom in road infrastructure development in our
country has led to enhanced demand for cost effective new construction materials like
geosynthetics. During last decade geosynthetic materials has been used in numerous
ways as reinforcement in road infrastructure. This paper discuss the potential application
of geosynthetic materials specially geogrid and geotextile form the perspective of
reinforcement in bituminous pavement and associated road infrastructure. Expected
benefits in terms of improvement in service life, reduction in overall thickness and ease
of construction in difficult areas are discussed in detail. Utilization of geosynthetic
materials for subgrade stabilization, as base reinforcement and overlay reinforcement
with stress absorbing interlayer are discussed in detail. This paper also presents few
case studies, involving pioneering use of geosynthetic materials enumerating design
and construction approach with their success stories.
Keywords: Geosynthetics; Geogrid; Geotextile; Reinforced pavement; Bituminous
concrete;
1. Introduction
A large variety of detrimental factors affect the service life of flexible pavement. These factors
include environmental factors affecting properties of pavement material, sub grade conditions, traffic
loading, aging etc. All these factors cause an equally wide variety of distress which is manifested
in the form of fatigue, rutting, differential settlement and reflective cracks in pavement. The
fundamental objective of pavement design is to prolong the service life of a pavement structure and
thus reducing the life-cycle cost. In the last few decades, geosynthetic reinforcement, particularly
high modulus polymeric geogrid and geotextile have been increasingly utilized within pavement
layers to improve the structural performance of both, newly constructed and rehabilitated flexible
pavement. A biaxial extruded polymer geogrid consisting connected parallel sets of tensile ribs
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Utilization of Geosynthetic Reinforcement for Construction & Rehabilitation of Bituminous Pavement 187

(with apertures of sufficient size to allow strike-through of the surrounding soil, stone, or other
geotechnical material), offer confinement to the aggregate material used in pavement layers. It
restricts lateral flow of pavement layers materials during loading. Most of the aggregates used
in pavement structure are stress-dependent materials, improved lateral confinement results in an
increase in the modulus of the base course material. The effect of increased modulus of the base
course is improved vertical stress distribution on subgrade and a corresponding reduction in the
vertical strain on top of the subgrade. Besides reducing the rutting strain, geogrids also resist fatigue
(horizontal) strain through the tensioned membrane effect, induced in the bituminous concrete layer.
This paper brings out the potential application areas of geosynthetic material as reinforcement in
bituminous pavement along with few case studies, involving pioneer use of geosynthetics as well
as failures arising out of geosynthetic usage enumerating flaws in the design/ construction approach
which led to such failures.
2.

Geosynthetics for Subgrade Separation and Stabilization

Large sections of our road network are in areas having clayey subgrade soil which are also subjected
to water logging. Roads built on such clayey soils (generally referred to as BC soils) suffer from
premature failures. Investigation of such road failures reveal that one of the major causes of failure,
could be attributed to presence of fine grained soils intermixed with the aggregate base. As little as
10 to 20 per cent of fines can completely destroy the structural strength of aggregates by interfering
with a strong stone to stone contact. To overcome such problems, 20 to 25 cm thick blanket of coarse
sand is normally recommended. However such blanket courses prove to be very expensive when
sand is not available within economic leads. Geotextiles can act as effective long term separator by
resisting the migration of coarse aggregates into soft sub-grade soil and also preventing pumping of
fine soil particles into the aggregate base, while still allowing pore water pressures to dissipate as
shown in Photograph 1.

Photo 1 : Geotextile Interlayer Preventing Migration of Coarse Aggregate into Soft Sub-grade

To study the efficacy of usage of polymeric (Nylon and polypropylene based) geotextiles as separator/
filter/ drainage material in road pavement, a study was taken up by CRRI about 20 years back. Five

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road sections in two states, namely Maharashtra and Gujarat which had shallow water table during
monsoon were selected. These roads were in rural areas, single lane carriage way (3.75 m) and had
HTV traffic varying from 50 to 90 vehicles per day. In order to assess the performance of different
road sections with and without polymeric geotextiles, different pavement sections were designed.
This included test stretches constructed using woven, non woven heat bonded and non woven needle
fleeced geotextiles placed between subgrade and sub-base. To evaluate relative performance, control
section of conventional pavement without any geotextile, test sections using sand blanket, moorum
and lime stabilised BC soil were also constructed. The physical properties of selected geotextiles
are given in Table 1.
Table 1 : Physical Properties of the Selected Geotextiles and Comparison with Design Values
Type of Fabric

AOS
(mm)

Grab Tensile Mullen Burst

strength (N)
Strength
(kN/mm2)

Puncture
Strength
(N)

Permittivity
(cm/sec)

Woven

0.090

1700

12

250

13 x 10-3

Non woven
(Heat bonded)

0.045

2000

22

375

27 x 10-3

Non woven
(Needle punched)

0.030

1500

18

310

36 x 10-3

The construction of pavement layers was carried out as per IRC/ MORTH specifications. The
performance of the pavement was monitored for a period of three years by recording Benkelman
beam deflection, transverse rut measurements and pavement distress in terms of cracking and
potholes. The salient findings of the performance monitoring for geotextile test section, control and
other sections at the end of monitoring period are summarised in Table 2.
Table 2 : Pavement Performance Evaluation
Test Specification

Rut depth (mm) Deflection (mm)

Distress (%)

Control Section

6 18

1.6 2.5

12 15

Section with Geotextile

(All three types)

69

1.5 2.0

1.0 6.0

Section with Moorum

8 14

1.7 3.5

3.0 8.0

Section with lime stabilised BC Soil

7 20

2.5 3.8

5 17.0

Section with sand blanket

4 14

1.7 2.2

1.0 5.0

3.

Geosynthetics for Base Reinforcement

Paved roads carry larger traffic volumes and typically have asphalt concrete surfacing over a base
layer of aggregate. The combined surface and base layers act together to support and distribute
traffic loading to the subgrade. Problems are usually encountered when the subgrade consists of soft
clays, silts and organic soils and having low bearing capacity.
Flexible pavements in India are designed on the basis of California bearing ratio of soil subgrade
and design traffic loading and volume. Indian Roads Congress code entitled Guideline for the

Utilization of Geosynthetic Reinforcement for Construction & Rehabilitation of Bituminous Pavement 189

Design of Flexible Pavement (IRC:37:2012) is used find out the layer composition and overall
pavement thickness for the soil subgrade of different C.B.R value and cumulative traffic loading,
during the design life. If the sub-grade C.B.R value is low then a thick pavement will be require
to control vertical strain on top of sub-grade. Several researcher studied the effect of geosynthetic
reinforcement in base layers of pavement particularly geotextile and geogrid towards the reduction
of vertical strain on top of subgrade.
A series of finite element (FE) simulations are carried out to evaluate the benefits of integrating a
high modulus geogrid as reinforcement into the pavement layers. A two dimensional axisymmetric
finite element model that analyzes the behaviour of unreinforced and geogrid reinforced bituminous
pavement subjected to dynamic loading conditions are developed with the help of PLAXIS software.
The critical pavement responses such as fatigue (horizontal strain, rutting (vertical) strain and vertical
surface deflection are calculated for unreinforced and geogrid reinforced flexible pavement using
a pavement response model developed through a commercially available finite element program
PLAXIS. Parametric studies are performed by varying the location of geogrid reinforcement, i.e.,
base - bituminous concrete interface and the base sub-grade interface. The structural benefits of
geogrid reinforcement over fatigue and rutting strain criteria have been quantified. It has been found
that placing geogrid reinforcement at the interface of base and subgrade layerse leads to the highest
reduction of vertical strain on top of subgrade. Fig.1 shows the pavement response model developed
for the study while results are reported in Table 3.

Fig. 1 : Material Layers and Boundary Conditions for Axisymmetric Finite Element Model

Table 3 : Fatigue and Rutting Strains Predicted Through Finite Element Model
Type of Pavement
(Geogrid Location)
Unreinforced Pavement
Reinforced Pavement (Geogrid
at the Interface of Base and
Subgrade)

Under Static Load

(t ).E-04
(cmax).E-04
-3.588
4.001
-3.557
3.453
max

Under Dyanmic load

(t ).E-04
(cmax).E-04
-3.081
4.412
-3.001
3.891
max

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Geosynthetics As Stress Absorbing Interlayer and

Reinforcement

Riding quality of road surfaces must be maintained regularly. A paved road becomes a candidate for
maintenance when its surface shows significant cracks and potholes. The rehabilitation of cracked
roads by simple overlaying is rarely a durable solution. The cracks under the overlay rapidly propagate
through to the new surface. This phenomenon is called reflective cracking. Propagation of reflection
cracks from distressed bituminous pavement to freshly laid bituminous overlay can be checked
by placing the geosynthetic interlayer particularly of geotextile and geogrid over the distressed
bituminous layer or within the overlay to create reinforced overlay system. The reinforcement limits
the movement of the cracked old pavement under traffic loads and thermal stress by holding the
cracks together.
Rehabilitation of distressed bituminous pavement of DND Flyway and DND Flyway to Mayur
Vihar Link Road is carried out under supervision of CSIR-CRRI using Non Woven Paving Fabric
and Glass Geogrid respectively.
On DND flyway to check the reflection cracking from distressed bituminous layer paving fabric
complying the requirement of MoRTH Specification for Road and Bridge Works (5th Revision)
is placed underneath the fresh bituminous overlay. A tack coat of VG-10 grade bitumen is applied
@1 kg/sq.m to bond the paving fabric with existing bituminous layer. When the paving fabric had
absorbed sufficient bitumen a overlay of Bituminous concrete of 40 mm thick of PMB-40 binder
was laid over it. Photos 2, 3 and 4 shows the fixation of paving fabric and laying of bituminous
overlay on DND Flyway.

Photo 2 : Application of Tack Coat and unrolling of Paving Fabric on DND Flyway

Utilization of Geosynthetic Reinforcement for Construction & Rehabilitation of Bituminous Pavement 191

Photo 3 : Distressed Pavement Covered with

Paving Fabric

Photo 4 : Bituminous Overlay over Paving

Fabric

Rehabilitation of Mayur Vihar Link road was carried out using glass geogrid as the pavement
surface was severely distressed and structural failure too were noticed on several locations. Besides
checking the reflection cracking, glass grid was also used to reduce fatigue related cracking and
to hold the whole system together. A profile correction course of Dense Bituminous Macadam of
average thickness of 50 mm was applied on distressed pavement to correct the existing surface
profile. After that corrected profile was covered with GTF Glass grid and over it 75 mm thick DBM
layer was placed. Another layer of Glass grid was laid on top of DBM to reduce fatigue related
cracking. Wearing course of 50 mm thick Stone Matrix Asphalt was laid over second layer of Glass
grid. Rehabilitated pavement was opened to traffic in May 2013. Photograph 5 and 6 shows the
fixation of paving fabric and laying of bituminous overlay on DND Flyway.

Photo 5 : Glass Geogrid over Distressed

Pavement on Mayur Vihar Link Road

Photo 6 : Surface view of freshly laid SMA

over Glass grid

5. Conclusions
When the geogrid reinforcement is placed at the bottom of the wearing course, it leads to the
significant reduction in horizontal tensile strain causing fatigue related cracking in the bituminous
pavement Geosynthetic reinforcement thus shows a good potential of decreasing fatigue strain in

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the pavement. The geogrid reinforcement, when placed between base course and subgrade layer can
significantly decrease the vertical strain (amounting to 11.80%) responsible for rutting in bituminous
pavement. Pavement having geogrid reinforcement at the bottom of the bituminous concrete layer
showed considerable improvement in pavement service life on varying load where fatigue life is
governing criteria. Utilization of paving fabric can significantly retard the propagation of reflection
cracks from existing bituminous layer to freshly laid overlay.
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to Dr. S. Gangopadhyay, Director, Central Road Research Institute (CRRI),
New Delhi, for his kind permission to present and publish this paper in International Symposium
on Geosynthetics-The Road Ahead.