In many applications, such as in landfills and in mining stockpiles, it becomes economical to increase the steepness of side slopes in order to increase storage of wastes in a minimum area. Smooth surface geomembranes have friction angles with soils approximately three quarter of those of the soils themselves. Recently many textured geomembranes have been developed to improve the geomembrane/soil friction.
Recent published results indicate that friction angles between textured geomembranes and different types of soils are similar to those of the soils themselves. It constitute a great improvement when compared to friction angles of smooth HOPE geomembranes.
The geomembrane/soil friction of commercial textured geomembranes produced by different processes have been investigated to compare their friction behaviour. Results obtained are presented and compared to the published data. The difficulties encountered in comparing results are also discussed: the influence of molding water content, time between sample preparation and condusting the test, shear box scale effects, liner stiffness and confining pressure.
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