Comparative study between needlepunched nonwoven geotextile structures made from flax and polyester fibres

Geotextiles are widely used in civil and geotechnical engineering applications. In this study, a comparison is made between the properties of the needlepunched nonwoven geotextiles produced from polyester and flax fibres. The properties of geotextiles including density, pore size and permeability have been investigated. It has been found that large inherent variation in flax fibre length and fineness can result in loss of tensile strength and cause large variation in smallest detected pore diameter. Nevertheless, flax fibre-based geotextiles have a great potential in various civil engineering applications as they are found to be less anisotropic, more compact and have produced an "open structure". Furthermore, the influence of process parameters, namely feed rate, stroke frequency and depth of needle penetration, on the properties of the geotextiles has been observed. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.