Project Description
The environmental effects such as ground contamination at barrier applications have brought in the need for improving the hydraulic performance of barrier products such as Geosynthetic clay liners into discussion in the present context. The extensive number of research carried out to identify various factors affecting the hydraulic performance of GCL has highlighted the importance of the need in both understanding the processes involved and limiting the permeation through the overlapping seam. Identifying the gap in lack of a standard laboratory method to test GCL overlaps, a method was developed using laboratory testing and numerical modelling techniques to measure the horizontal liquid flow through the GCL overlaps. The effect of the combination of different factors affecting the GCL overlap seam was experimented to identify the most effective overlapping condition for a given product and application. With the completion of this research project, a product-specific guideline defined for any GCL overlapping condition was developed for reference for the benefit of the industry. The research hence allows optimization of the product performance serving major environmental concerns i.e. reducing the groundwater contamination risk and benefitting the industry financially through reducing material and rehabilitation costs at failure of liner performance.
Project Details
- Duration : Feb 2017 – Aug 2020
- Partners :
- Geofabrics Australasia Pty Ltd
- Research Method:
Laboratory element tests on GCL permeability, Model tests (Flow box tests), Numerical modelling
Chief Investigators
Team
- Isuri Weerasinghe
