ASTM D35.01 RECOMMENDS REPLACING MULLEN BURST TEST WITH CBR PUNCTURE BURST TEST FOR GEOTEXTILES

During the January 21-25, 2000, American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) committee meetings held in New Orleans, Louisiana, ASTM Committee D35.01, the Mullen Burst Task Group, met. The mullen-burst test was developed within ASTM D13 (textiles) to test fabric used in manufacturing the elbows of shirts. It was adopted for use by the geosynthetic specifications community because it was the only puncture test available at that time. However, it has not been adopted by D35 (geotextiles). It has long been the opinion of many people within the geosynthetics community that the mullen-burst test is not an appropriate test for use on geosynthetics. The California Bearing Ratio (CBR) puncture test was specifically developed to replace the mullen-burst test, and it has been shown to have a much better correlation with performance. It is hoped that after a year or two of published data, the specifying community will switch to the CBR test and the mullen-burst test will be phased out of active usage.