Sustainable approaches to tackling pavement and railway projects with geosynthetics were explored at a IGS workshop during the 5th International Conference on Transportation Geotechnics (ICTG).

Led by the IGS Technical Committee on Stabilization (TC-S), seven speakers covered a range of topics including pavement and railway foundations resilience, the effects of drainage and separation in these structures, and testing and modelling of rail track geosynthetics projects.

Workshop co-organizer Amir Shahkolahi said: "It was a very successful half-day workshop, with 25 attendees from designers, clients, university professors, and students, despite it being announced only a month before the conference. We also had a good diversity of speakers from around the world. We have had a lot of good feedback so far.

"The workshop furthered the debate and knowledge about sustainable geosynthetics and provided a opportunity to focus on lesser-covered topics such as the importance of separation and drainage, and the effect of flood."

Attendees heard from Mr Shahkolahi, co-organizer and TC-S chair Erol Tutumluer, Jorg Klompmaker (NAUE, Germany), Michael Dobie (Tensar, Indonesia), Rajesh Bhavsar (Geofabrics, Australia), Charmaine Cheah (Huesker, Australia) and Trung Ngo (University of Technology Sydney, Australia).

Mr Tutumluer said: "The Australasian Chapter of the IGS is a vibrant community of professionals in transportation geotechnics, including engineering consultants, geosynthetic manufacturers and enthusiasts. Under Amir's leadership, this workshop has successfully brought the latest advancements in the transportation applications of geosynthetics to the participants.

"I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers of the 5th ICTG, particularly my esteemed colleague, distinguished Professor Buddhima Indraratna, for his invaluable support in organizing this pre-conference workshop. I also wish to acknowledge his significant contributions to the field of engineering with geosynthetics."

Mr Shahkolahi also thanked workshop sponsors Geofabrics, Global Synthetics, Huesker, NAUE, and Tensar.

The workshop, 'Sustainable geosynthetic solutions to transportation geotechnical problems' was held on November 19, during the 5th ICTG in Sydney, Australia, from November 20-22.

Presentations from the workshop will be available soon. Contact the IGS TC-S here for more information.