Topic:

Designing Geosynthetic Cementitious Composite Mat (GCCM) to American Society for Testing & Materials (ASTM) Standards

Course Overview:

Designers and specifiers have a duty of care to design infrastructure to best practice guidelines. Until recently, best practice for GCCMs has been a grey area.

In February 2021, ASTM published D8364, which sets out minimum requirements for a GCCM and the correct test methods which must be used.

This presentation explains how designers can use ASTM D8364 to properly specify a GCCM for their project, correctly detail it and evaluate GCCM products conformance with ASTM D8364.

Speaker:

Nick Kastoumis, Concrete Canvas Technical/Commercial Manager for Oceania & Qualified Civil Engineer, has been involved in building and civil construction for over 35 years - the last 20 years involved in technical marketing of geosynthetic products.

This began in 2002 working for Maccaferri, Sydney as a Sales Engineer. Nick has had various technical/sales roles since then, including five years of running his own geosynthetic consulting practice. During this period Nick introduced new products to the Oceania Region including, welded mesh gabions, EPDM geomembranes and bituminous geomembranes.

In 2015 Nick was appointed his role at Concrete Canvas for Oceania. This involves working with distribution partner Geofabrics Australasia, specifiers, asset owners, contractors and regulators to ensure successful delivery of projects incorporating the GCCM solutions.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understanding what a GCCM is
• 4 important approaches
• What is ASTM D8364 and why it is “best practice”
• Why does duty of care in design refer to widely accepted standards or principles
• Why ASTM D8329 is the only appropriate standard to test compressive strength of GCCM’s
• Selection of correct GCCM grade to ASTM D8364
• Best panel layout for GCCM installations
• Detailing of terminations, joints and other design details
• Notes to include in specifications