Geonet and geospacer cores covered with geotextile filter/separators, called drainage com-posites or geocomposite drains, have been a revolution in civil and geotechnical applications. These lightweight, thin materials have replaced natural sand and gravel drainage soils in many transportation, geotechnical and hydraulic engineering applications. Due to their excellent performance, low cost and ease of construction they are regularly used as drainage media in all types of civil construction projects. That said, panels or rolls of geocomposite drains are finite in their dimensions and generally not able to cover the entire footprint of a project site. Therefore, connections and attachments at ends and edges are required on all projects. This paper addresses proper procedures with the required details. Furthermore, a new test method to evaluate the strength of the usual plastic cable ties will illustrate how conventional connections perform in the laboratory, as well as the field. The paper also gives recommendations on field installation of such materials (such as no butt joining of cores, no intervening geotextiles within flow re-gion and no exposed drainage core against the adjacent soil) are concerned.
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