Cold temperature testing of geotextiles: new, and containing soil fines and moisture

A test program examined the behavior of geotextiles at very low temperatures, and tested the hypothesis that the presence of soil fines and moisture would result in decreased strength values compared with geotextiles at cold temperatures. Wide-width strip tensile and static puncture tests were performed on needle-punched nonwoven polypropylene geotextiles at 20 degrees, 0 degrees, -20 degrees, -40 degrees and -54 degrees C for the wide- width strip tests and at -51 degrees C for the puncture tests on new specimens and specimens that contained soil and moisture. At all sub-freezing temperatures, the specimens that contained ice and soil were much stronger and more brittle in tension than the new specimens. Soil and moisture did not significantly influence puncture strength.