The beginnings of geosynthetics
Major events leave a lasting impact – these are often planned and prepared events. But it is often the unexpected catastrophic events that really mark our future. Whenever something threatens to put people's lives or even their very existence at risk, human beings develop a primeval will to survive; and it is often this will to survive which brings about progress. The drive and the creativity arising in such situations are scarcely conceivable under normal conditions. Put in a nutshell, progress is often born under extreme circumstances. Today's geosynthetics were born from such an example; the disaster that hit the Netherlands in the middle of the last century. In 1953, the Dutch people's constant battle against the sea reached its climax when the Netherlands suffered the worst natural disaster in its history. Raging storms flooded the south-west corner of the country: over 1,800 people drowned, over 47,000 homes were destroyed, 201,000 animals perished and 500 kilometres of dykes were destroyed. More than 72,000 people were made homeless.


Delta plan
The Dutch government produced what became known as the Delta plan to prevent such disasters ever happening again. At first, this project was limited to the South-Western Netherlands, but was soon extended to cover all coasts and river banks, building new dykes and repairing, rebuilding and reinforcing existing ones. The project started by constructing 'simple dams', and was completed in the 1990s, as an unequalled tour de force using state of the art technologies and large quantities of newly developed bespoke geosynthetic materials in the Eastern Schelde lock system. At first, only limited resources were available: the only weapon against the waters and dam breaches were simple sandbags. As demands were high, and conventional jute bags were largely ineffective, the authorities decided to look for alternatives: so they turned to Enka Industrial Systems (now Colbond), to develop synthetic fibers for use in sandbags, barrier mats and natural filter materials to repair the damaged dykes.



Polyamide sandbags
These large, sand-filled bags were used instead of large natural stone and concrete blocks. They were carried to site by dragline bucket diggers, and had to be transhipped seven times before reaching their destination. The only precaution taken when carrying the full bags (each containing about a tonne of dry sand) was rounding off the edges of the plastic crates used in filling them. While 1 tonne polyamide sandbags were first used in 1957, 10 tonne capacity bags were available just two years later, and thoughts turned to designing a mat with fixed ballast.



Growing expertise
Installing 20,000 square meters of " Enkalon" polyamide sand mattresses using specially designed roller pontoons was another milestone. This was the start of using pre-filled sunken mattresses. With an increasing number of high-technology, forward-looking applications in the Delta works for which a great deal of specialist equipment had to be developed, other parties also became interested in what geosynthetic materials could do. One outcome of this was when 30,000 square meters of sand mattresses were used to protect banks and meadows on a natural island of an oil company on the Rio Magdalena in Columbia. This installation may be regarded as the first use of pre-filled reinforcement. In 1962, Colbond developed the "Enkalon" sealant for covering banks, over 100,000 square meters of which were used in a lock system in the Netherlands in 1964.

In the late 1960s, "Structofors" nonwovens for reinforcing and sealing asphalt were the forerunners of the subsequent asphalt membrane products and separators for road building. One could therefore say that Colbond developed the forerunner of all today's geosynthetic asphalt inlays. In 1973, we launched our Enkamat erosion protection mat; this was followed in 1976 by the polyester material "Stabilenka" for soil stabilization, which has since led to the product Enkagrid developed in the late 90’s. After their first use in the Delta works, geosynthetic materials became increasingly important in a world dominated until then by concrete, stone and basalt.


Enkamat – a chance product with major consequences
Enkamat, now over 30 years young, can truly be called a chance product, as it was created quite unexpectedly during a spinning process. Colbond's culture of innovation encouraged engineers to investigate the application of this new by-product’s potential, and soon found application in the Delta project as an artificial root system that could be used to stabilize the roots of plants giving an integral erosion protection system. It was soon realized that this property would be very useful as part of a comprehensive system of cleaning up banks and strengthening vegetation. Extensive testing and many product improvements have made Enkamat what it is today: a range of proven, light and flexible erosion protection mats. At the same time, Enkamat was also the starting point for developing the wide range of Enkadrain drainage mats and Colbonddrain vertical drains which have also been in use for years for drainage and acceleration of soil consolidation.

From sandbags to laser-welded geogrids
To some extent, the Delta plan can also be seen as the origin of the geogrid breakthrough. Polymer know-how, expertise, customer orientation, extensive testing and research work provided the foundations for developing Colbond's geosynthetics now accepted worldwide, and with it leading production methods such as our patented, computerized laser welding system for Enkagrid geogrid used for demanding soil reinforcement and stabilization projects.

To summarize: since their first origins in the 1950s, geosynthetic products have become increasingly important. Today's construction landscape would be hard to imagine without these stable, lightweight products, which have shown the way in a wide range of challenging applications.