The use of geosynthetic materials has become an acceptable practice in road construction including flexible pavements as a sustainable environmentally friendly solution. Studying the behavior of geogrid reinforced roads over the last 40 years has led to several empirical and mechanistic-empirical methods being developed for the design of geosynthetic reinforced unpaved and paved roads. There is no single design method for this application in the world as the road conditions vary from one region to an-other. Adopting an empirical design method from another region or indeed another country requires local verification and calibration. In Australia, the peak organisation of Australasian road transport and traffic agencies (Austroads) offers a design method for unreinforced flexible pavements and gives some recom-mendations for using geosynthetics but there is no design guideline for geogrid reinforced pavements. Local road authorities such as Queensland Transportation and Main Roads (QTMR) has published a product specification for geogrids in subgrade reinforcement, but again without providing a design meth-od for this application. This paper reviews the available pavement design methods in Australia and pro-vides a design procedure in accordance with Australian design guidelines for geogrid reinforced flexible pavements based on international and local experience and test results.
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