Ohio ODOT Geotextile Fabrics

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

Ohio ODOT - Geotextile Uses

Ohio projects span glacial tills and lakebed clays around Lake Erie, sandy outwash along river valleys, karstic limestone in the west, and shale-based hills in the southeast. Add long freeze–thaw seasons, snowmelt, heavy deicing-salt use, spring cloudbursts, and heavy truck volumes on corridors like I-70, I-71, and I-75, 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 rehab work, ODOT commonly places a woven geotextile between native soil and granular base or subbase. The fabric blocks silts and clays from migrating upward into the aggregate under traffic, spreads load, and preserves base thickness. Over thaw-weakened tills, wet shoulders, or utility cuts, crews often first roll out geotextile to create a working platform so haul trucks and pavers don’t punch through. Where subgrades are exceptionally weak or variable, the fabric is paired with geogrid to boost stiffness and speed construction.

Filtration and drainage. Water drives many failures in Ohio. Nonwoven geotextiles line edge-drain and 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—tight tills upstate versus sandier alluvium along the Scioto, Cuyahoga, and Great Miami—lets water move while fines stay put, reducing clogged outlets, wet spots, and shoulder drop-offs. In freeze–thaw zones, a nonwoven atop open-graded aggregate also forms a capillary break, limiting upward moisture that weakens base layers in winter.

Riprap underlayment and scour control. Where flows concentrate—culverts, storm outfalls, river bends, and channel linings—geotextiles serve as underlayment beneath riprap or rock armor. A robust nonwoven filter is placed on the prepared bed or slope before stone. It prevents subgrade from piping through rock voids during high velocities, ice breakup, and debris-laden floods, helping the armor “lock in” and protecting embankments at bridge approaches and channel transitions along the Ohio, Maumee, and Muskingum systems.

Structures and MSE walls. ODOT corridors include extensive mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls at interchanges in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Toledo. 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 utility penetrations, where a filter layer keeps weeps functioning without trapping water.

Pavement interlayers. Asphalt-impregnated nonwoven geotextile beneath overlays improves waterproofing and slows reflective cracking—important where thermal cycling, deicing chemicals, and heavy axle loads accelerate pavement aging. On chip seals common to secondary routes, paving fabrics limit water intrusion into the 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 approach 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-storage pads, and deicing-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 required, anchor with pins or the first lift, and cover promptly to limit UV and winter weathering. Selection is function-driven—woven for stabilization and tensile capacity; nonwoven for filtration, drainage, and protection—tuned to Ohio’s soils, hydraulics, and traffic demands.

Ohio ODOT