AASHTO M288 Geotextiles

What/Who is AASHTO?

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials is known

as AASHTO. This organization was established by the State DOT's to work
towards common goals. AASHTO consists of professionals from each of the states'
highway and transportation departments. They are responsible for assigning route
numbers for the U.S. route system. AASHTO's primary functions include:
Advocating for transportation issues in Washington; facilitating information sharing
between the State Dot's through meetings, workshops and the Internet; and
developing globally recognized transportation engineering guides, standards and
software.

One of those standards is AASHTO M288. AASHTO M288-15 is published within

its two-volume "Standard Specifications for Transportation Materials and Methods
of Sampling and Testing". US Fabrics offers geotextiles that satisfy AASHTO
requirements. A US Fabrics' AASHTO selection guide is available in a link at the
bottom of this page.

A Brief History of AASHTO

In the early 1980's the use of geotextiles in the United States was still relatively
new and there were really not any accepted standard design methodologies for
using geotextiles.

In 1982, the Committee on Materials of AASHTO, the American Road and

Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) and the Association of General
Contractors (AGC) formed Joint Task Force 25 (TF 25) to review the suggested
geotextile specifications being proposed by the Federal Highway Association
(FHWA) Geotextile Manual. The task force was a diverse group of contractors,
members of the geotextile industry and representatives of various state and federal
transportation agencies.

In 1986 the task force approved five material specifications that included notations
on installation procedures for the applications of paving, subsurface drainage,
separation, erosion control and silt fencing. Eventually the five were merged into
one single specification. This became known as M288-90. This specification was
revisited and revised as the geotextile industry in the United States blossomed.
The latest version is M288-15.

NTPEP (National Transportation Product Evaluation Program) & AASHTO

NTPEP was founded in 1994, from the popular Regional Testing Facilities (RTFs)
organized by FHWA, SASHTO and NASTO. The basic mission of the program is to
reduce duplication of effort by State DOT's and participating industry, for purposes
of product prequalification.

AASHTO member departments (State DOT's) are recipients of NTPEP reports and
each State DOT maintains prerogative to use the test data, as it suits their needs.
As such, a State DOT requiring the AASHTO specification, may or may not also
require the products be tested according to NTPEP guidelines.

AASHTO's Impact

While many State DOT's have adopted AASHTO M288 standards, many
unfortunately combine them with their own specifications or require their own
testing in addition to NTPEP.

How AASHTO M288 Works

M288-15 covers six geotextile applications: Subsurface Drainage, Separation,

Stabilization, Permanent Erosion Control, Sediment Control and Paving Fabrics.
However, AASHTO M288-15 is not a design guideline. It is the engineer's
responsibility to choose a geotextile for the application that takes into consideration
site-specific soil and water conditions. When site conditions are unknown,
engineers can refer to AASHTO M288-15 Survivability Default Classes for
guidance.

Survivability is divided into 3 Classes: Class (1) being the most severe and Class
(3) being the less severe. Each Class is then subdivided according to elongation.
This offers a choice of Non-woven geotextiles or Woven geotextiles for each Class.
If an elongation is not specified, keep in mind that the user will always pick the
cheapest option. For Stabilization and Separation application a woven is typically
less expensive than the nonwoven option. For Subsurface Drainage and Erosion
Control it is the opposite. For certain applications hydraulic properties are included
in AASHTO M288-15.

Below is a link to a list of US Fabrics geotextiles that satisfy the AASHTO M288-15
specifications. This web page is provided as a source of basic information on
AASHTO specifications. Products and specifications can change without notice.
Always verify the geotextile meets the specification for the specific project you are
bidding.