The project

Trisoplast has a wide range of uses in various markets, which is why you will find our product all over the world. Our work in the Centre-Val de Loire in France, where we helped restore a centuries-old canal, is a good example of a successful international project.

Canal bed lining

The Canal d’Orléans passes through the French Centre-Val de Loire region and connects the Loire to the Canal du Loing near Corquilleroy. Construction was started in 1680 and the canal was opened to shipping in 1693. The canal has 28 locks and forms the southern stretch of a connecting waterway between the Loire and Seine rivers. The canal was closed to shipping in 1954, but now the plan is to make the canal fully operational again by 2020. The first section was started in 2007. Trisoplast was responsible for the canal bed lining.

Finished in record time

Because this section of the canal had not been used – or maintained – for such a long time, it was losing a lot of water. An extremely robust solution was needed to meet the high waterproofing requirements. Trisoplast’s excellent sealing properties helped ensure that water loss was reduced to almost zero. ‘We’re really proud of the result,’ says our French licensee Gilles Mulder, who helped install the Trisoplast liner, ‘not in the last place because all other liners – such as membranes – proved unfeasible in this situation. The underground was rough with lots of sharp stones and the liner had to be joined to an old stone wall on one side and a new concrete wall on the opposite bank, and this along the whole length of the canal. The Trisoplast liner was seamlessly attached to the various materials in the walls and was in turn covered with a bed of sharper aggregate that will not be displaced by the turbulence in the canal. And not unimportantly; we finished the project in record time!’