|
Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
|
Waste Management & Research, Vol. 25, No. 6,
572-584 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0734242X07079867
Interpretations of surface movements of a landfill built on steeply sloping ground. A cautionary case history
G.E. Blight
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, blight{at}civil.wits.ac.za
The surface of a municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill cell, built on steeply sloping ground, was discovered to be moving downhill. The movements were measured and considered by the owners to be alarming. In an attempt to stop the movement, the compacted soil stability berm at the toe of the cell was raised by 5 m in two stages. The rate of movement declined, but the waste surface continued to move. Eventually, the cell was not filled to its designed full level. The paper describes the design of the landfill cell and its underliner, as well as three independent investigations into the causes of the surface movement. The first two investigators assumed that the surface movements represented shear displacements at the interface of the geomembrane and its protective geo-fabric, and therefore that the cell was failing in shear. The third investigation, undertaken in preparation of evidence in a civil court case, 7 years later, concluded that the movements resulted from down-slope shear straining of the land-filled MSW. The later investigation concluded that the MSW cell had been, and is still shear-stable, and it points to differences in behaviour between MSW landfill slopes and comparable slopes in mine waste or natural soils.
Key Words: Municipal solid waste • landfilling • compressional and shear strains • shear-instability • interfacial friction • wmr 1074—2
References
- Barone, F.S., Costa, J.M.A. & Ciardullo, L. (2000) Temperatures at the base of a municipal solid waste landfill. In: Proc. Sixth Canadian Environmental Engineering Conference, pp. 41—48, Queen's University, London, Ontario, Canada.
- Blight, G.E. (2004) A flow failure in a municipal solid waste landfill — the failure at Bulbul, South Africa. In: Advances in Geotechnical Engineering: The Skempton Conference, vol. 2, pp. 777—788. Thomas Telford, London.
- Blight, G.E. (2005) Consequences of raising the height of a landfill in a water-deficient climate. Waste Management, 25, 1021—1036.
- Blight, G.E. (2006) Geo-environmental and Management Aspects of the Behavior of Mining and Municipal Solid Wastes in Water-deficient Climates, vol. 1, pp. 36—80. ASCE Geotechnical Special Publication No. 147. ASCE, Reston, Virginia, USA.
- Brink, D.P., Day, P.W. & du Preez, L. (1999) Failure and Remediation of Bulbul Drive landfill: KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In: Proc. Seventh International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium, Cagliari, Italy, pp. 555—562. Environmental Sanitary Centre, Cagliari, Italy.
- Holley, K., Richardson, J. & Sadlier, M. (1997) Design and construction to optimize landfill stability at the NENT landfill, Hong Kong. In: Proc. Sixth International Landfill Symposium, Sardinia, Italy, pp. 565—574. Environmental Sanitary Centre, Cagliari, Italy.
- Jardine, R.J., Gens, A., Hight, D.W. & Coop, M.R. (2004) Developments in understanding soil behaviour. In: Advances in Geotechnical Engineering: The Skempton Conference, vol. 1, pp. 103—206. Thomas Telford, London, UK.
- Kavazanjian, E. (2001) Mechanical properties of municipal solid waste. In Proc. Eighth International Landfill Symposium, Sardinia, Italy, pp. 437—444. Environmental Sanitary Centre, Cagliari, Italy.
- Machado S.L., Vilar, O.M. & Carvalho, M.F., (2002) An elastic-plastic framework to reproduce the MSW mechanical behaviour — long term analysis. In: de Mello, L.G. and Almeida, M. (eds) Environmental Geotechnics (4th ICEG), vol. 1, pp. 65—70. Swets and Zeitlinger, Lisse, Netherlands.
- Mitchell, J.K., Seed, R.B. & Seed, H.B. (1990) Kettleman Hills waste landfill slope failure I: Liner-system properties. Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, ASCE, 116, 647—668.[ISI]
- Mitchell, J.K., Seed, R.B. & Chang, M. (1993) The Kettleman Hills landfill failure: A retrospective view of the failure investigations and lessons learned. In: Proc. Third International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering, St. Louis, MO, USA, vol. 2, pp. 1379— 1392. University of Missouri-Rolla, MO, USA.
- Pasqualini, E., Fratalocchi, E. & Stella, M. (2002) Stability of liners: some particular issues. In: de Mello, L.G. and Almeida, M. (eds) Environmental Geotechnics (4th ICEG), vol. 1, pp. 895—912. Swets and Zeitlinger, Lisse, Netherlands.
- Pereira A.G., Sopena, L. & Mateos, M.T.G. (2002) Compressibility of a municipal waste landfill. In: de Mello, L.G. and Almeida, M. (eds) Environmental Geotechnics (4th ICEG), vol. 1, pp. 201—206. Swets and Zeitlinger, Lisse, Netherlands.
- Rodriquez, J.A. & Velandia, E. (2002) Geotechnical monitoring program in Bogota's municipal solid waste landfill after the 1997 landfill slide. In: de Mello, L.G. and Almeida, M. (eds) Environmental Geotechnics (4th ICEG), vol. 1, pp. 145—150. Swets and Zeitlinger, Lisse, Netherlands.
- Seed R.B., Mitchell, J.K. & Seed, H.B. (1990) Kettleman Hills waste landfill slope failure II: Stability analysis. Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, ASCE, 116, 669—690.[ISI]
- Watts, K.S. & Charles, A.J. (1999) Settlement characteristics of landfill wastes. Proceedings, Institution of Civil Engineers, Geotecnical Engineering, 137, 225—234.
- Zekkos, D.P., Bray, J.D., Kavazanjian, E., Matasovic, N., Rathje, E., Riemer, M. & Stokoe, K.H. (2006) Unit weight of municipal solid waste. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 32, 1250—1261.
 CiteULike  Connotea  Del.icio.us  Digg  Reddit  Technorati What's this?
|
