Geotextiles
AASHTO M288 Geotextiles
 What/Who is AASHTO? |
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials is known as AASHTO. This organization was established by the State DOT's to work towards common goals. AASHTO consists of professionals from each of the states' highway and transportation departments. They are responsible for assigning route numbers for the U.S. route system. AASHTO's primary functions include: Advocating for transportation issues in Washington; Facilitating information sharing between the State DOTs through meetings workshops and the Internet; And developing globally recognized transportation engineering guides, standards and software
One of those standards is AASHTO M288-96. AASHTOM288-00 is published within its two-volume "Standard Specifications for Transportation Materials and Methods of Sampling and Testing". US Fabrics offers geotextiles that satisfy AASHTO requirements. A list of US Fabrics AASHTO M288 products is available in pdf form on the page below. | A Brief Histroy of AASHTO |
In the early 1980s the use of geotextiles in the United States was still relatively new and there were really not any accepted standard design methodologies for using geotextiles.
In 1982, the Committee on Materials of AASHTO, the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) and the Association of General Contractors (AGC) formed Joint Task Force 25 (TF 25) to review the suggested geotextile specifications being proposed by the Federal Highway Association (FHWA) Geotextile Manual. The task force was a diverse group of contractors, members of the geotextile industry and representatives of various state and federal transportation agencies.
In 1986 the task force approved five material specifications that included notations on installation procedures for the applications for paving, subsurface drainage, separation, erosion control and silt fencing. Eventually the five were merged into one single specification. This became known as M288-90. This specification was revisited and revised as the geotextile industry in the United States blossomed. The latest version is M288-00.
| NTPEP (National Transportation Product Evaluation Program) & AASHTO |
NTPEP was founded in 1994, from the popular Regional Testing Facilities (RTFs) organized by FHWA, SASHTO and NASTO. The basic mission of the program is to reduce duplication of effort by State DOTs and participating industry, for purposes of product prequalification.
AASHTO member departments (State DOTs) are recipients of NTPEP reports and each State DOT maintains prerogative to use the test data, as it suits their needs. As such, a State DOT requiring the AASHTO specification, may or may not also require the products be tested according to NTPEP guidelines.
| AASHTO's Impact |
While many State DOT's have adopted AASHTO M288 standards, many unfortunately combine them with their own specifications or require their own testing in addition to NTPEP.
| How AASHTO M288 Works |
M288-00 covers six geotextile applications: Subsurface Drainage, Separation, Stabilization, Permanent Erosion Control, Sediment Control and Paving Fabrics. However, AASHTO M288-00 is not a design guideline. It is the engineer's responsibility to choose a geotextile for the application that takes into consideration site-specific soil and water conditions. When site conditions are unknown, engineers can refer to AASHTO M288-00 Survivability Default Classes for guidance.
Survivability is divided into 3 Classes: Class (1) being the most severe and Class (3) being the less severe. Each Class is then subdivided according to elongation. This offers a choice of Non-woven geotextiles or Woven geotextiles for each Class. If an elongation is not specified, in many cases a woven is the user's best options since they are typically less expensive than nonwoven geotextiles. For certain applications hydraulic properties are included in AASHTO M288-00. Below is a link to a list of US Fabrics geotextiles that satisfy the AASHTO M228-00 specifications. This web page is provided as a source of basic information on AASHTO specifications. Products and specifications can change without notice. Always verify the geotextile meets the specifcation for the specific project you are bidding. For further information or clarification about US Fabrics Geotextiles and AASHTO M288-00, please give us a call @ 800-518-2290 or e-mail us @ info@usfabricsinc.com. |
