The size of the clay clods has a strong in?

uence on the hydraulic conductivity

of a compacted clay. Hence, during compaction, the clods must be broken down
mechanically to as small as possible. A very heavy roller used for compaction he
lps to
break them down.
Bonding between successive lifts is also an important factor; otherwise, permean
t
can move through a vertical crack in the compacted clay and then travel along th
e interace
between two
lifts until it ?nds another crack,
as is shown schematically in Figure
17.2. Poor bonding can increase substantially the overall hydraulic conductivity
of a compacted
clay.
An
example
of poor bonding was
seen in a trial pad construction in Houston
in
1986. The
trial pad was
0.91 m (3 ft) thick and built
in six,
15.2 mm (6 in.) lifts. The
results of the hydraulic conductivity tests for the compact soil from the trial
pad are given
able 17.2. Note that, although the laboratory-determined values of k for various
lifts
are on the order of 10
7
to 10
9
cm/sec, the actual overall value of k increased to the order
of 10
4
. For this reason, scari?cation and control of the moisture content after compac
tion
of each lift are extremely
important in achieving
the desired hydraulic conductivity.
In the construction of clay liners for solid-waste disposal sites where it is re
quired
k  10
7
cm/sec, it is important to establish the moisture content unit weight criteria
in the laboratory for the soil to be used in ?eld construction. This helps in th
e development
of proper speci?cations.Geotextiles are textiles in the traditional sense; howev
er, the fabrics usually are made from
petroleum products such as polyester, polyethylene, and polypropylene. They also
may be
made from ?berglass. Geotextiles are not prepared from natural fabrics, which de
cay too
quickly. They may be woven, knitted, or nonwoven.
Woven geotextiles are made of two sets of parallel ?laments or strands of yarn s
ystematically
interlaced to form a planar structure. Knitted geotextiles are formed by interlo
cking
a series of loops of one or more ?laments or strands of yarn to form a planarstr

ucture. Nonwoven geotextiles are formed from ?laments or short ?bers arranged in
an
oriented or a random pattern in a planar structure. These ?laments or short ?ber
s ?rst are
arranged into a loose web. They then are bonded by using one or a combination of
the following
processes:
Chemical bonding by glue, rubber, latex, cellulose derivative, and so forth
Thermal bonding by heat for partial melting of ?laments
Mechanical bonding by needle punching
The needle-punched nonwoven geotextiles are thick and have high in-plane hydraul
ic conductivity.
Geotextiles have four major uses:
1. Drainage: The fabrics can channel water rapidly from soil to various outlets.
2. Filtration: When placed between two soil layers, one coarse grained and the o
ther
?ne grained, the fabric allows free seepage of water from one layer to the other
. At
the same time, it protects the ?ne-grained soil from being washed into the coars
egrained
soil.
3. Separation: Geotextiles help keep various soil layers separate after construc
tion. For
example, in the construction of highways, a clayey subgrade can be kept separate
from a granular base course.
4. Reinforcement: The tensile strength of geotextiles increases the load-bearing
capacity
of the soil.
Geotextiles currently available commercially have thicknesses that vary from abo
ut 0.25
to 7.6 mm (0.01 to 0.3 in.). The mass per unit area of these geotextiles ranges
from about
150 to 700 g/cm
2
.
One of the major functions of geotextiles is ?ltration. For this purpose, water
must be able to ?ow freely through the fabric of the geotextile (Figure 17.4). H
ence, the
cross-plane hydraulic conductivity is an important parameter for design purposes
. It
should be realized that geotextile fabrics are compressible, however, and their
thickness
may change depending on the effective normal stress to which they are being subj
ected.
The change in thickness under normal stress also changes the cross-plane hydraul
ic