Geotextile materials tend to have coatings that can make them difficult to test without slippage or jaw breaks. These coatings, combined with the wide variety of weights, weaves, and surface textures found across geotextile products, mean that no single gripping pressure or jaw face type works well for every sample a lab might encounter. Instron's pneumatic side-action grips provide an easy, repeatable, high-throughput gripping solution that lets users quickly fine-tune gripping pressure to avoid jaw breaks or slippage, without needing to guess at the right setting for each new material.

Pneumatic side-action grips also feature Instron's quick-change technology, which allows jaw faces to be easily changed by hand, without requiring tools or pins. This matters in a lab setting where switching between specimen types throughout the day is common — every extra minute spent swapping jaw faces with a wrench is a minute not spent generating test data. Since different geotextiles require a range of clamping surfaces, from smooth to serrated to rubberized, quick-change jaw faces can significantly improve throughput in labs where these materials are common, letting operators move from one geotextile sample to the next with minimal setup time between tests.