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Roadway Drainage

It’s a known but often overlooked fact: water retention within a pavement structure is a primary cause of pavement deformation, rutting and breakdown. Excess water weakens aggregate base, sub base and subgrade soil layers, reducing their structural capacity. Further, many pavement designs do not adequately address drainage issues. Without adequate underlying drainage, a pavement section is likely to degrade and fail prematurely.

Pavement engineers, transportation officials, owners and contractors now have a better way to address these issues: the RoaDrain™ Roadway Drainage System, available from Tensar International. The RoaDrain System is an economical alternative to open-graded drainage aggregate applications, including granular blanket drains, to quickly remove subsurface water.


Pavement Failure: Beneath the Surface


Providing an innovative synthetic subsurface drainage layer (SSDL), the RoaDrain System is an economical alternative to open-graded drainage aggregate applications, including granular blanket drains, to quickly remove subsurface water.

Drainage problems exist in any application where pavement and water meet:

  • Under a roadway’s aggregate base course, within a weak subgrade, directly beneath Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) or within a PCC joint
  • Beneath frost-susceptible soils in freeze-thaw environments
  • On roadways that are exposed to potential flooding or seasonal high water table conditions
  • On airport runways/taxiways, in railway trackbeds, in parking lots, and on walkways

Similar issues are also encountered within embankments, dikes, channel drains, and detention ponds.

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