Geotextile specification – a buyer’s warning

Significant problems associated with a project in Australia have highlighted a problem with accepting geotextile supplier’s typical specification sheets as a true indication of the material supplied to site. The designer specified typical values presented on supplier A’s specification sheet, however the contractor purchased an “equivalent” product from supplier B (based on the “typical values” shown on their datasheet).

When the product supplied to site was tested by an independent laboratory the results obtained were significantly lower than the project specification and supplier B’s published data. A comparison of the specification, published data and test results is presented in the table below.