Geosynthetic Clay Liner Hydration Swell Index & Thickness

The formula

This is the expression the tool evaluates. Every term is named underneath, with the unit it must be supplied in.

How the result is derived

Step by step, from the values you type to the figure on screen.

1. The 5 inputs are read from the form on every keystroke: Bentonite Mass per Area, Swell Index, Dry GCL Thickness, Overburden Stress and Reference Confining Stress.
2. Each value is checked against the accepted range in the input table below. A value outside its range stops the calculation rather than producing a misleading figure — the results blank out and a message appears.
3. The validated values are substituted into the expression above, which resolves Hydrated Thickness together with every supporting figure in one pass — no value is carried over from a previous entry.
4. The supporting outputs — Unconfined Swell Thickness, Confinement Factor, Thickness Gained, Restrained Swell Pressure and Hydrated Moisture Content — come from the same pass, so they always describe the same case as the headline figure.
5. Results are rounded for display only. The full-precision value is used throughout the chain, so reading a rounded intermediate figure back into the tool by hand can shift the last digit.

What each input means

Where to read each value on the floor, the unit it must be in, and the range the tool accepts.

What the tool returns

The headline figure and every supporting value it is built from.

Worked example

The tool loads with this case already solved — the Hydrated Thickness shown above is its answer. Change one value and the difference from this baseline is the sensitivity of the result to that variable.

How to use it

1. Work through the input groups in order — Liner Make-up and In-Service Confinement. The defaults are a realistic case, so you can change one value at a time and watch what moves.
2. There is no calculate button. Every figure recalculates as you type or drag, which is what makes this usable for a what-if sweep rather than a single answer.
3. Read Hydrated Thickness in the dark results panel — that is the headline figure, expressed in mm.
4. Check the supporting rows underneath (Unconfined Swell Thickness, Confinement Factor, Thickness Gained, Restrained Swell Pressure and Hydrated Moisture Content) before acting on the headline — they are where an implausible input usually shows itself first.
5. Reset to defaults returns every field to the reference case, which is the quickest way to check whether a surprising result came from the tool or from an input you had changed earlier.

Where this is used

• Process planning — establishing Hydrated Thickness before a trial is booked, so machine time and material in Geosynthetics & Civil Engineering are committed against a calculated figure rather than an estimate.
• Costing and quotation — Hydrated Thickness is an input to the cost sheet, and quoting from a worked number rather than a remembered one is what keeps a margin intact.
• Troubleshooting — when the floor result drifts from plan, entering the measured values (starting with Bentonite Mass per Area) shows how much of the gap in Hydrated Thickness each variable explains.
• Teaching and study — the accepted ranges bracket normal Geosynthetics & Civil Engineering practice, so moving one variable at a time shows the shape of the relationship rather than a single answer.

Assumptions and limits

• Free swell index is measured in deionised water; calcium-rich or saline groundwater cuts the achievable swell sharply and can halve it over years of cation exchange, so a liner that tests fine on installation may not stay that way. At high overburden the confined thickness can fall below the dry thickness, which the model reports as a negative gain — physically that means the liner is compressing rather than swelling and the hydration assumption no longer holds. Barrier performance is a permeability question; thickness is only a proxy for it.
• Every input is bounded to the range normal practice occupies (Bentonite Mass per Area 1 to 12 kg/m², Swell Index 8 to 45 mL/2 g and Dry GCL Thickness 3 to 20 mm, and so on for the rest). Those bounds are guard rails against typing errors, not a claim that the formula fails one unit outside them.
• The calculation is deterministic: the same inputs always give the same result. It carries no allowance for machine condition, operator skill, ambient conditions or lot-to-lot material variation unless an input above explicitly represents one.
• Nothing is sent anywhere. The maths runs in your browser, so the numbers you type never leave the page.

Questions people ask