Experimental Study of HDPE Material Used for Pervious Pavement Components

Pervious pavements are surfaces construction which allow rainwater to infiltrate the surface and into the underlying construction layers. They are an important option used for stormwater source control in Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS) and have received much attention from researchers, particularly with respect to their use as car parking surfaces. They also remove low levels of pollution from the water by filtration and also by biodegradation of hydrocarbons, which are adsorbed to materials within the construction. When higher exposures of oil are experienced these traditional structures can fail dramatically. The way around this is to incorporate an oil interceptor system into the pavement. The long term retention of large amounts of oil leads to further worries as to chemical and microbiological stability of the components which make up the structure, particularly when the materials used are plastics such as HDPE and polypropylene. The overall aim of this experimental study is to investigate the difference of tensile strength of HDPE in two different conditions: exposed in air and soaked in used engine oil and thus try to find out possible deterioration in performance of key components in pervious pavement systems.