Spectrophotometry as a tool for characterizing durability of woven geotextiles

Geotextiles are used in numerous applications ranging from coastal hydraulic projects to geotechnical landfill projects. Durability studies are necessary for the sizing of these structures since these projects are subject to aggressive weathering. Therefore, it is important to be able to rapidly evaluate the rate of degradation of the geotextile, without detriment to the project. For traditional tests of geosynthetics, large areas must be exhumed, therefore a test which makes use of small specimens is proposed: spectrophotometry. The procedure proposed here makes use of electromagnetic radiation to evaluate the degradation of woven geotextiles by means of analysis of ultraviolet and infrared absorption. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the analysis of geotextile materials by spectrophotometry, making comparisons between laboratory and field degradation. The analyses and correlations were demonstrated to be satisfactory for characterization of degraded geotextiles. The results, with respect to both the absorbance of ultraviolet and transmittance of infrared, yielded both qualitative and quantitative characterizations of the behavior of the studied material. Therefore, spectrophotometry may be considered viable alternative for evaluating the characterization of durability in exhumed samples.