Nebraska NDOT Geotextile Fabrics

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

Nebraska NDOT - Geotextile Uses

Nebraska projects cross loess bluffs in the east, wind-worked sands of the Sandhills, and broad alluvial plains along the Platte, Republican, and Missouri Rivers. Add freeze–thaw cycles, spring snowmelt, intense convective storms, and heavy ag and freight traffic, and you get subgrades that can soften, pump fines, rut, scour, and settle. Geotextiles are the quiet engineering layer that helps pavements, structures, and drainage systems keep performing.

Separation and stabilization. On new lanes, shoulder widenings, and staged construction, a woven geotextile is placed between native soil and granular base. It prevents fine soils—loess, silts, and clayey fills—from migrating into the aggregate under traffic, spreads loads, and preserves base thickness. Where subgrades are very soft or saturated (floodplain approaches, low shoulders, disturbed utility trenches), crews roll out fabric to create a working platform so trucks and pavers don’t punch through. On exceptionally weak ground, geotextile is often paired with geogrid to add stiffness and speed construction.

Filtration and drainage. Water drives many failures on the Plains. Nonwoven geotextiles line underdrain trenches, wrap perforated pipe, and separate drainage stone from surrounding soils behind retaining walls, abutments, and wingwalls. Matching apparent opening size (AOS) and permittivity to local soils—clean Platte River sands versus tighter loess and silts—lets water move while fines stay put, cutting off the mechanisms that clog outlets, create wet spots, and destabilize shoulders. In cold regions, laying a nonwoven over open-graded aggregate also forms a capillary break, limiting upward moisture that fuels frost heave and base softening.

Riprap underlayment and scour control. Where flows concentrate—culverts, storm outfalls, streambanks, and channel linings—geotextiles serve as underlayment beneath riprap or rock armor. A robust nonwoven filter is placed on the prepared slope or bed before stone. It prevents subgrade from piping through rock voids during high velocities, drawdown, and debris-laden floods, helping the rock “lock in” and protecting embankments at bridge approaches and channel bends along rivers that can rise quickly after storms.

Structures and MSE walls. NDOT corridors include many mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls and grade separations. 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 at wingwalls, backwalls, and structural penetrations, where a filter layer protects weeps and outlets from silty inflow without trapping water.

Pavement interlayers. Asphalt-impregnated nonwoven geotextile beneath overlays improves waterproofing and slows reflective cracking—valuable where thermal swings, deicing chemicals, and heavy axle loads accelerate pavement aging. On chip seals common to rural routes, paving fabrics limit water intrusion into base and subgrade, extending service life with minimal added thickness.

Temporary erosion and sediment control. Geotextiles appear in silt fence, inlet protection, curb socks, and check structures. 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 beneath coarse rock; the fabric spreads wheel loads and prevents stone from punching into wet soils, reducing track-out onto public roads.

Liner protection and containment. Heavy nonwoven geotextiles cushion geomembranes in stormwater basins, lined ditches, salt-shed pads, and brine containment, protecting liners from puncture by angular aggregate and construction traffic.

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

Nebraska NDOT