STRESS CRACKING IN HOPE GEOMEMBRANES: WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO AVOID IT

Stress cracking (SC) is a visually brittle failure that occurs at a constant stress lower than the yield stress of the material itself. It is a fundamental phenomenon to which all HOPE geomembranes are susceptible. Commercially available HDPE geomembranes show a range of stress cracking resistances that vary by a factor of 1000. In all other respects these HDPEs have very similar mechanical properties. This paper describes the stress cracking phenomenon and outlines those actions that can be taken during the design, specification, conformance testing, installation, seaming, testing, and facility operation phases to minimize the susceptibility of an HDPE geomembrane installation to stress cracking.