GEOSYNTHETIC CLAY LINER PERFORMANCE IN GEOTECHNICAL APPLICATIONS

摘要

Since the late 1980s, geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs) have been specified and used by design engineers, agencies and owners as an alternative to soil barriers in various ipplications. The growing interest in these products stems from the unique properties and advantages they offer. They are very effective as a hydraulic barrier even under high gradient conditions; they are easy to install; show a high robustness against installation stresses and they can withstand elongation as well as settlement stresses without significant impact on their hydraulic performance. The wide range of GCL use includes landfill caps and base liner applications, environmental protection barriers under roads and railways, within various containment structures such as dams, canals, ponds, rivers and lakes, even for waterproofing of buildings and similar structures. However, their potential in other applications is only limited by convention. Numerous laboratory studies have shown the excellent performance capable with natural sodium bentonite geosynthetic clay liners. In more recent years, field conditions have been replicated in large-scale simulations to study the complex environmental effects such as wet/dry and freeze/thaw cycles as well as ionic exchange. The aim of this paper is to document the design requirements for various GCL applications, summarize the latest large-scale field trials and to illustrate that a GCL is equivalent if not superior to the prescriptive compacted clay liner.