This paper investigates the behaviour of geogrids (as geotextile related . materials) at exposure, storage and burial in soil in a hot dry climate. Kuwait was chosen as it experiences a wide range of annual temperature throughout the year, with air temperature rising to 45°C in summer and dropping to 0 OC in winter. It also has an extremely high UV radiation level with long hours of uninterrupted sunshine on most of the days of the years. Two geogrids presently used for reinforcement and soil retainning wall applications in Kuwait, were fully exposed, stored out of sunlight and buried in soil at the depth of 0.5 m and 1.5 m. The two geogrids were an high density polyethelen (HDPE) uniaxial grid and a polypropylene(PP) biaxial grid.
The samples o.f the material provided by the manufacturers were tested on delivery, then after sustaining exposure. storage and burial in soil for 3, 6 and 1 2 months. The tests carried were constant rate tensile test and wide width sustained load (creep) test with a loading period up to 1,000 hours. These results revealed some remarkably different responses from the two products.