Evaluation of Liner Systems Used in Salt Bearing Detention Ponds

The Sustainable GeoInfrastructure (SGI) research team completed a research project on the evaluation of liner systems used in salt bearing detention ponds with support from the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) in 2020. Civil Engineering

Assistant Professor Kuo Tian

and Civil Engineering Associate Professor Burak Tanyu led the project. Sandarva Sharma conducted this research project for his PhD study.

VDOT has voluntarily constructed more than 200 salt ponds to collect saline water in the salt storage and distribution facilities to prevent subsurface water contamination. A salt storage facility includes a salt dome to store deicing salt, staging area to distribute salt, and salt pond to collect precipitation from staging area. The salt ponds were typically built using polymer modified bituminous geomembranes (GMs) as liner material to prevent leakage of saline water to surroundings. The team visited six salt ponds and found that the atactic polypropylene (APP) GM was the most common liner materials

Evaluation of Liner Systems

Used in Salt Bearing Detention Ponds

The long-term service life of GM in contact with saline water is of particular importance because leakage from salt ponds will result in environmental consequences.

used in the field. The team

conducted two laboratory aging tests to investigate the effect of solar/UV radiations and chemical on the deterioration of APP GM. Combining the field survey results and laboratory aging test, a model was proposed to predict the degradation of APP GM as a function of service time. The model can be helpful to the VDOT staff in determining the time to replace the APP GM used as liner in salt ponds. A final report was submitted to VDOT for review. For more information about the SGI Lab go to geotrans.vse. gmu.edu. g

precipitation– flooding