Mechanical characteristics of geogrids produced from recycled polyester

Abstract

The use of recycled polyester (rPET) in construction materials offers significant benefits, including energy conservation, cost reduction, and decreased solid waste. This study compares the performance of rPET with that of virgin polyester (vPET) products. Therefore, two main testing programs including pull-out tests and creep performance tests were carried out in order to determine the interfacial properties of the geogrid-reinforced soil and time-dependent manner of the geogrids, respectively. Broadly speaking, this study showed that the performance of ‘rPET’ geogrid is comparable with ‘vPET’ geogrids. Pull-out tests revealed that pull-out resistance of both ‘vPET’ and ‘rPET’ geogrids were roughly the same and the ‘vPET’ geogrid mostly had lower dilation angles in comparison with ‘rPET’. Moreover, based on the performance creep tests, it was understood that the long-term mechanical behaviour of ‘rPET’ does not differ from the long-term behaviour of ‘vPET’ products.