Michigan MDOT Geotextile Fabrics

Solmax DOT Standard Specification Product Chart (click image to expand)

Michigan MDOT - Geotextile Uses

Michigan projects span glacial tills, dune sands, lakebed clays, organic mucks, and urban fills—often sitting on high groundwater and exposed to long freeze–thaw seasons, lake-effect snow, deicing salts, and spring melt. Those conditions can soften subgrades, pump fines into base layers, and scour channels during storms. Geotextiles are the quiet engineering layer that helps pavements, structures, and drainage systems hold together.

The most common role is separation and stabilization. On new lanes, shoulder widenings, and rehabilitation work, a woven geotextile is placed between native soil and granular base or subbase. It stops fine soils—especially silty tills and saturated clays—from migrating upward into the aggregate under traffic, spreads load, and preserves base thickness. Where subgrades are very soft or wet (utility crossings, low shoulders, marsh edges), crews roll out fabric to create a working platform so trucks and pavers don’t punch through. On exceptionally weak ground, the geotextile is often paired with a geogrid to add stiffness and speed construction.

Because water drives many failures, filtration and drainage are constant priorities. Nonwoven geotextiles line edge-drain and underdrain trenches, wrap perforated pipe, and separate drainage stone from surrounding soils behind retaining walls, abutments, and wingwalls. Correct apparent opening size (AOS) and permittivity let water move while fines stay put, reducing clogged outlets, wet spots, and shoulder drop-offs. In freeze–thaw zones, a nonwoven over open-graded aggregate also forms a capillary break, limiting upward moisture that weakens base layers in winter.

Where flows concentrate—culverts, storm outfalls, streambanks, and Great Lakes shorelines—geotextiles serve as riprap underlayment. A robust nonwoven filter goes on the prepared slope or bed before armor stone. It prevents underlying soils from piping through rock voids during high velocities, seiche events, wave run-up, and ice shove, helping the riprap “lock in” and protecting embankments at bridge approaches and channel bends. Along coastal revetments and river training works, sewn seams or generous overlaps keep the filter continuous under fluctuating water levels.

Michigan corridors also include extensive mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls and grade separations. Here, geotextiles act as joint and face filters, tucked behind panel or block joints so backfill fines don’t migrate to the face while drainage continuity is preserved. The same concept applies around structural penetrations and backwalls, where a filter layer protects weeps and outlets from silty inflow without trapping water.

MDOT makes strategic use of pavement interlayers. Asphalt-impregnated nonwoven geotextile beneath overlays improves waterproofing and slows reflective cracking—important where deicing chemicals, thermal cycling, and heavy axle loads accelerate pavement aging. On chip seals common to secondary routes, paving fabrics limit water intrusion into the base, extending service life with minimal added thickness.

For temporary erosion and sediment control, geotextiles appear in silt fence, inlet protection, curb socks, and ditch checks. They filter runoff while trapping fines—critical for stormwater compliance on long medians, steep cuts, and urban work zones. At project entrances, stabilized construction exits typically include a nonwoven geotextile under coarse rock; the fabric spreads wheel loads and prevents stone from punching into wet soils, reducing track-out onto public roads.

Finally, geotextiles provide liner protection in stormwater basins, lined ditches, salt-storage pads, and deicing-brine containment. Heavy nonwoven fabrics cushion geomembranes from angular aggregate and construction traffic, lowering puncture risk and boosting system life.

Performance hinges on basics: prepare subgrades smooth, avoid wrinkles, overlap or sew seams as required, anchor with pins or the first lift, and cover promptly to limit UV exposure. Selection is function-driven—woven for stabilization and tensile capacity; nonwoven for filtration, drainage, and protection—tuned to Michigan’s soils, hydraulics, and traffic demands.SourcesAsk ChatGPT

Michigan MDOT