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Mechanical properties of landfill components under low to medium stress levels

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Abstract

Engineered landfills are vulnerable to landslides under external and body loads. A better understanding of the shear and volume change responses of the dumpsite materials is of great importance when it comes to designing and analyzing disposal facilities. This paper aims to investigate the hydromechanical parameters of a daily soil cover of a local landfill, an aged municipal soil waste (MSW), and the soil-MSW interface, all in their actual size. A large direct shear apparatus of the size of 1 × 1 × 1.1 m3 was employed to conduct an extensive program of consolidation and shear tests incorporating the role of the fine fraction on the behavior of the materials. It is depicted that while the shear strength of the MSW is less than that of the daily soil cover and soil-MSW interface under low normal stresses; this trend is reversed under high vertical stresses. In daily soil cover, when fines content is raised, cohesion increases, despite the fact that friction angles decrease. In addition, recompression index, coefficient of consolidation, volumetric recompressibility index, and coefficient of permeability experience a considerable drop with an increase in fines content. The contribution of water films formed on the cobbles to the change in time-dependent parameters such as permeability is noticeable. A rise in fine content leads to a yield locus enlargement, whereas elastic parameters are independent of the percentage of fine grains.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Fasa University, Fasa, Iran

    Iesa Akbari & Mohsen Ajdari

  2. California State Polytechnic University Pomona, 3801 W. Temple Ave, Pomona, CA, 91768, USA

    Ali Shafiee

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  1. Iesa Akbari
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Correspondence to Mohsen Ajdari.

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Akbari, I., Ajdari, M. & Shafiee, A. Mechanical properties of landfill components under low to medium stress levels. Bull Eng Geol Environ 81, 368 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-022-02835-4

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