**1. Introduction**

Geotextile is classified into woven fabric and nonwoven fabric in a morphological form and it performs functions such as reinforcement, separation, filtration, and drainage when applied to civil engineering structures. Generally, due to its structural form, the nonwoven geotextile has a small permeability coefficient and permittivity despite its small apparent opening size (AOS) compared with the woven geotextile style, it has advantages in function. Woven geotextile is applied to reinforce soil structure with poor shape stability in nonwoven geotextile based on excellent mechanical performance, and it also takes charge of filtration and drainage [1, 2].

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Figure 1.** Sustainable geosynthetics.

Geotextile products have the characteristics of so-called tailor-made materials, which are known to function for specific applications. The long-term performance of geotextiles has a close relationship with the stability of the applied structure and practical applications such as continuous new method and new technology [3, 4]. As the demand and necessity to high-performance products gradually increase, composite products, environment-friendly products, environment adaptive products, hybrid, or smart products should be developed. In response to this, the development and advancement of the evaluation method are progressing steadily.

acrylic fiber, asbestos fiber, and low-modulus fibers such as polypropylene, polyamide, polyethylene, and polyester fiber, etc. are generally used to manufacture geosynthetic products.

Polyethylene (Low, middle and high density) Geotextiles, Geomembranes, Geogrids, Geopipes, Geonets,

Polypropyrene Geotextiles, Geomembranes, Geogrids, Geocomposites,

Polyester (High tenacity) Geotextiles, Geogrids, Prefabricated Board Drain (PBD)

Polyamide Geotextiles, Geogrids, Geocomposites

Geocomposites

Prefabricated Board Drain (PBD)

Polymeric Synthetic Fabrics to Improve Stability of Ground Structure in Civil Engineering…

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Otherwise, antioxidants, carbon black, oils, plasticizers, fillers, etc. are added to improve the specific properties of the polymer, and two or more raw materials may be blended to improve specific properties. In the case of the geotextile made of polyethylene resin, radicals are formed due to sunlight, which causes decomposition and causes embrittlement. Hindered amine light stabilizers (HALS) series oxidation stabilizer is added to prevent radical formation by daylight and ultraviolet rays. Weather resistance is also improved. When geosynthetics are applied for a long period of time, durability depends on the characteristics of the polymeric materials used. Therefore, it is highly desirable to analyze the characteristics of geosynthetics

Natural fibers used in geotextile products are very limited, but they were first used as geotextile products. They were mainly applied in fiber, yarn, and knit form, and their demand increased as nonwoven- and woven-type products were developed. Since geotextiles of natural fibers have the advantage of being eco-friendly materials, the utility of geotextile products has recently begun to reappear. The raw materials of the products also include cotton, jute, coir, straw, and other stem forms of waste assembly, and it is very diverse. However, since it is not used much and cannot be mass-produced compared with synthetic materials, it poses a difficult problem to create demand. Some of them use civil engineering natural fiber products

One of the conditions that geosynthetic products must have is economic advantages, which is a very real problem directly linked to manufacturing costs. Polyolefin, polyester, and so on are

to determine their use.

**3.1. Natural fibers**

**3.2. Synthetic fibers**

**3. Fibers used for polymeric synthetic fabrics**

**Polymeric raw materials Geosynthetic products**

Glass fibers, Polyvinyl alcohol(PVA) fibers, Aramid fibers, Carbon fibers etc.

**Table 1.** Geosynthetic products with polymeric raw materials.

as slope stabilization, erosion control, drainage, etc.

International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) Education Committee established that geotextiles can be classified broadly based on the manufacturing method and geotextiles is a continuous sheet of woven, nonwoven, knitted, or stitch-bonded fibers or yarns. Sheets are flexible and permeable and generally have a cloth-like appearance. Geotextile is used for separation, filtration, drainage, reinforcement, and anti-erosion applications [5].

In general, sustainable geosynthetics mentioned here are classified as "Usual Geosynthetics" and "Green Geosynthetics" based on required performance as shown in **Figure 1**.

In here, "Usual Geosynthetics" refers to the function-oriented long-term maintenance and environment-adaptive products introduced, and "Green Geosynthetics" refers to environment-friendly degradable geosynthetics, respectively.

In this chapter, we will introduce "Sustainable Geotextiles," which is differentiated from geotextile products to hybrid geocomposites except the traditional geotextile products.
