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The Grid That Doubles the Strength of the Ground

practical.engineering

41–42 of 42 posts

Re: The Grid That Doubles the Strength of the Ground

#41
post #5

Of course, you need "forever plastics" to make this work long term. It's like everything else where you have a material with decent compressive strength but weak tensile strength. You need something with some tensile strength to hold it together. That's what rebar does. It's why rebar rusting out destroys concrete structures. The same problem applies to geotextile containment of dirt. If the textile degrades, it's ju…

>If the textile degrades, it's just a pile of dirt, in a place where a pile of dirt isn't enough.

It's now a pile of dirt with loads of bits of plastic and slowly leeching plasticisers.

Re: The Grid That Doubles the Strength of the Ground

#42
post #5

Of course, you need "forever plastics" to make this work long term. It's like everything else where you have a material with decent compressive strength but weak tensile strength. You need something with some tensile strength to hold it together. That's what rebar does. It's why rebar rusting out destroys concrete structures. The same problem applies to geotextile containment of dirt. If the textile degrades, it's ju…

I'm sort of OK with this use of plastic. Unlike all the single-use plastics we make (bottles, forks, food-wrap - the list is endless) this is going to be in use and providing value for decades. And can likely be made from recycled HDPE.
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