5 years ago

Rapid prototyping of geosynthetic interfaces: Investigation of peak strength using direct shear tests

Rapid prototyping offers a platform technology for investigations within the geosynthetics research and manufacturing sectors. This paper considers the application of rapid prototyping for the development of geosynthetic interfaces. The benefits and challenges of three rapid prototyping techniques (fused filament fabrication, selective laser sintering and laser thermal ablation) are considered and comparisons are presented between the three technologies. The paper then compares prototyped models of geomembrane texturing to those of a factory sourced reference geomembrane, leading on to a systematic geometric assessment using laser sintered model geomembranes. The geometric assessment highlights the benefits of hooked geomembrane asperities to interact with geotextiles in low normal stress applications, with a 69% increase in peak shear strength reported for hooked asperities, compared to the factory reference geometry. Asperity spacing is shown to influence the measured shear strength, with an increase for a geomembrane geotextile interfaces with closer asperities and an optimum spacing observed for geomembrane clay interfaces, below which the failure plane slides over the top of the texturing. Increases in asperity height correlated to smaller than expected increases in shear stresses for both geomembrane-geotextile and geomembrane clay interfaces. Whilst current rapid manufacturing techniques are shown to offer the ability to test the influence of variables on the performance characteristics of geosynthetic materials, the limitations of each technique, polymer utilised and resulting chemical and physical behaviour of the sample must be understood to allow these techniques to be successfully deployed.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S0266114417301140

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.