5. Conclusion

As stated in the introduction to this article, thermoplastic polymeric geomembranes are the most widely used geomembranes. This does not mean that other types of geomembrane should not be used. The main feature of thermoplastic geomembranes is their sensitivity to heat, enabling them to be easily assembled by thermal welding. It is also, in some cases, their weakness, which opens the door to elastomeric geomembranes that are relatively insensitive to heat. These geomembranes will be examined in another article, along with bituminous geomembranes [C 5 437] .