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Sustainability Benefits of Adopting Geosynthetics in Roadway Design

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Abstract

The world’s roadway system is so extensive that its total length would encircle the Earth over 1,600 times if combined. Geosynthetics have provided sustainable alternatives in roadway projects, representing a significant portion of the total usage of geosynthetics in civil infrastructure. Yet, considering the significant extension of roadway projects worldwide, geosynthetic products are only utilized in a small fraction of them. Consequently, the opportunities to achieve sustainability goals by making more extensive use of geosynthetics in roadways are massive. The objective of this paper is to illustrate the sustainability benefits of adopting geosynthetics in roadway design. This is accomplished by quantifying the carbon footprint for six roadway projects, each involving at least two alternative designs: One with and the other without using geosynthetics. Each roadway project involved one of six different applications involving the use of geosynthetics. Specifically, they involved the use of geosynthetics to (1) mitigate reflective cracking in structural asphalt overlays, (2) stabilize unbound aggregate layers, (3) reduce layer intermixing, (4) reduce moisture in structural layers, (5) stabilize soft subgrades, and (6) mitigate distresses caused by expansive clay subgrades. The sustainability benefits were quantified by conducting carbon audits for the alternative designs for each roadway project. The results of the analyses indicate that the design alternatives involving geosynthetics always proved more sustainable than the conventional (without geosynthetics) alternatives, resulting in savings in the total carbon footprint that ranged from 16.3 to 44.44 tCO2e per lane-km (or 11.6 to 50.11% decreased footprint in relation to conventional design alternatives). Overall, while the rationale for adopting geosynthetics in different roadway applications has generally focused on the benefits that they offer to improve the project’s performance or reduce its costs, the evaluations in this study reveal that an additional reason to adopt geosynthetic solutions in roadway applications is their potential to provide significant sustainability benefits.

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Data Availability

Data sets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the information provided by many colleagues regarding the case histories presented in this paper. This includes Flavio Montez, Lizeth Vergara, Erick Sanchez, Sven Schroer, John Herrmann, John Lostumbo, James Robbins, and Darlene Goehl.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Jorge G. Zornberg & Yagizer Yalcin

  2. The Transtec Group, Inc., Austin, TX, USA

    S. Subramanian

  3. HDR, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Gholam H. Roodi

  4. Huesker Inc., Austin, TX, USA

    V. Vinay Kumar

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  1. Jorge G. Zornberg
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  2. S. Subramanian
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  3. Gholam H. Roodi
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  4. Yagizer Yalcin
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  5. V. Vinay Kumar
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Contributions

The study was conceptualized by Jorge G. Zornberg. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by S Subramanian, Gholam H. Roodi, Yagizer Yalcin, and Vinay Kumar and supervised by Jorge G. Zornberg. The first draft of the manuscript was written with contributions from all authors and finalized by Jorge G. Zornberg. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jorge G. Zornberg.

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Zornberg, J.G., Subramanian, S., Roodi, G.H. et al. Sustainability Benefits of Adopting Geosynthetics in Roadway Design. Int. J. of Geosynth. and Ground Eng. 10, 47 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40891-024-00551-5

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