About the development history of geosynthetics

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About the development history of geosynthetics

Jun 28, 2021

Geosynthetics is a general term for synthetic materials used in civil engineering. It uses synthetic polymers, such as plastic, chemical fiber, synthetic rubber, etc., as raw materials to make various types of products, which are placed inside, on the surface of the soil or between layers of soil to play a role in strengthening or protecting the soil. This material is widely used in various fields of water conservancy, electric power, highway, railway, construction, seaport, airport, mining, military industry and other projects.
The earliest application of geosynthetics can be traced back to the 1930s and 1940s, but the earliest application of geosynthetics has a history of thousands of years.

According to scientific research, as far back as the Neolithic Age, our ancestors used thatch as a reinforcing material for soil. In the Yangshao site found in Henan, there are many rudimentary houses whose walls and roofs were built using grass mud, with a history of about five to six thousand years; in Yumen, Gansu province, there are still sand, gravel and red willows or reeds. The relics of the Great Wall of Han Dynasty. Abroad, as far as 3000 BC, the British used wooden rafts to build roads in the swamp; from 2000 to 1000 BC, the Babylonians used fabric fibers mixed with soil to build temples. In the 1920s and 1930s, the United States also tried cotton fabrics to strengthen the pavement; in the Second World War, the United Kingdom laid pin rollers and canvas on the roadbed to facilitate the passage of armored vehicles.

The application of geosynthetics in our country, China, began in the mid-1960s, when many plastic and chemical fiber products appeared on the market. A small number of engineers and technicians found that these products have excellent engineering characteristics, and they tried to use them in civil engineering and gained some successful experience, but they failed to promote them in time. In the 1970s, a woven fabric woven from flat yarn fibers, commonly known as "chemical fiber packaging bags", began to be used in river and culvert gate projects, and its raw materials were mostly polypropylene and polyethylene.