Our test site in Florida was the location to see the effects of extreme load on saturated ground that was covered by UltraBaseSystems® panels and turf. The area is nearly 3 years old so it was a perfect test zone.
Water was allowed to run through the turf and panels and into the compacted earth below for nearly an hour. The area chosen was approximately one interior panel of a 2000 ft² area.
We drove repeatedly back and forth across the saturated turf area for over 50 cycles. The turf was then removed and water was concentrated directly onto the panels for fast drainage to the geotextile and earth below.
We once again drove back and forth over the exposed panel. There was no evidence of any deformation or decreased stability of the panel after the car was removed.
We carefully cut away the panel trying to be sure not to disturb the geotextile material. The exposed geotextile material showed little sign of deformation of the earth below. In fact the indentations were less than the thickness of a quarter. We removed the geotextile and could see the earth was very wet yet showed minimal deformation.
After 3 ½ years this valuable test site had served its purpose and was time to return the area back to natural grass. We removed all the panels and exposed the geotextile which showed little effects of the panels settling into the ground. We have concluded that the heavier the geotextile face weight the better stability it gives to the panel installation. A face weight of 6 oz or more per square yard of our spun bond polyester geo is a great choice.
We removed the geotextile exposing the existing earth base. This is the area after removal. This is the area prior to installation. The before and after shots of the area show very little change over the last 3 ½ years.
