Municipalities everywhere are grappling with the same persistent issue: moisture.
Saturated subgrades, frost‑susceptible soils, and slow‑draining bases continue to undermine pavement performance and drive up maintenance costs. Traditional geosynthetics help, but they don’t address the full picture, especially when water remains trapped within the pavement structure.
That’s where solutions like WickGrid™ are starting to gain attention.
WickGrid™ is Titan’s patent-pending wicking geogrid composite designed to reinforce, separate, filter, drain, and actively manage moisture in a single system. As municipalities continue evaluating strategies to improve long-term pavement performance, solutions like WickGrid™ are being explored for their ability to address moisture-related challenges within the pavement structure.
Moisture: The Hidden Driver of Municipal Pavement Failures
Even well‑designed municipal roads struggle when moisture accumulates in the base or subgrade. Water increases pore pressure, weakens soils, accelerates rutting, and amplifies freeze‑thaw damage. It also allows fines to migrate upward into imported aggregates, reducing structural capacity and shortening pavement life.
Most geosynthetics can reinforce or separate. Some can drain. A few can wick moisture — but only in one direction. Few solutions are designed to combine these functions into a single system. WickGrid™ was developed to address reinforcement, separation, filtration, drainage, and moisture management simultaneously.
What Sets WickGrid™ Apart
WickGrid™ bonds a high‑stiffness biaxial geogrid to a unique wicking nonwoven geotextile. This composite structure delivers performance advantages that conventional geogrids, nonwovens, and woven wicking fabrics can’t match.
It transports water even under zero hydraulic gradient, thanks to its proprietary microstructure and 0° contact‑angle fibers. That means WickGrid™ moves moisture in unsaturated soils — a critical capability for managing seasonal fluctuations and preventing water pooling within the base.
Because the geotextile wicks in all directions, moisture is removed more quickly and evenly. The geogrid component provides high stiffness at low strains, uniform apertures for interlock, and long‑term mechanical and chemical stability. Together, they create a system that reinforces, drains, separates, filters, and manages moisture simultaneously.
Where It Can Add Value for Municipal Projects
For municipalities evaluating new approaches, WickGrid™ offers several potential advantages:
- Improved subgrade stability through reduced moisture content
- Better performance in freeze-thaw conditions
- Potential to optimize base thickness or material selection
- Reduced risk of seasonal soft spots and premature repairs
Rather than relying on multiple separate layers, WickGrid™ is designed to consolidate several key functions into one system.
A Smarter Path to Resilient, Cost‑Effective Infrastructure
WickGrid™ offers municipalities a practical way to address one of the most persistent causes of pavement deterioration. By combining reinforcement, separation, filtration, drainage, and multi‑directional moisture wicking in a single product, it simplifies design, reduces material needs, while helping municipalities pursue more resilient, cost-effective pavement designs.
It’s more than a geogrid. More than a geotextile. Contact us today to learn how you can use WickGrid™ on your next project.