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A Finite Element Study on Hydro-Thermo-Mechanical Behaviour of Bioreactor Landfills

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Abstract

During the lifetime of a bioreactor landfill, municipal solid waste (MSW) undergoes complex thermal, mechanical, and hydraulic processes. Therefore, a coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) analysis is essential for the realistic prediction of the final settlement of landfills at the end of construction and post-construction stages. This study is focused on investigating the THM analysis of a bioreactor landfill using finite element simulation with ABAQUS software. The numerical model was validated considering an actual bioreactor landfill cell located in Calgary, Canada. Furthermore, as a baseline model for parametric study, the exact properties of Arlington bioreactor landfill, Texas, were simulated in this paper. Accordingly, the effects of landfill geometry, foundation soil elastic modulus, and thermal expansion coefficient of the MSW were investigated. In addition, a biodegradation process of the MSW material was simulated in bioreactor landfills by using a phase change model in which the mechanical properties of the MSW changed with time during and after the construction and after that. The obtained results indicated that the final settlement of landfill was affected considerably by the landfill geometry and the foundation elastic modulus, whereas the thermal expansion coefficient of MSW material had a marginal effect on the landfill settlement. Moreover, a comparison of the effect of geometry in two landfills with equal height illustrates that the landfill with all layers buried under the ground undergoes higher settlement than the landfill with half of the layers buried and half of the layers above the ground.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Professor B.V.S. Viswanadham, Faculty member at the Civil Engineering Department of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India, for reviewing this study and giving critical comments for improving the quality of the manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the Shahid Beheshti University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Civil, Water & Environmental Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

    Amirhossein Safari & Ali Noorzad

  2. School of Civil Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Jaber Mamaghanian

Authors
  1. Amirhossein Safari
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  2. Ali Noorzad
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  3. Jaber Mamaghanian
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Contributions

Amirhossein Saffari contributed to conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, writing—original draft, and writing—review and editing; Ali Noorzad contributed to supervision, conceptualization, methodology, and writing–review and editing; Jaber Mamaghanian contributed to software, validation, formal analysis, writing—original draft, and writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Ali Noorzad or Jaber Mamaghanian.

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Safari, A., Noorzad, A. & Mamaghanian, J. A Finite Element Study on Hydro-Thermo-Mechanical Behaviour of Bioreactor Landfills. Indian Geotech J 52, 1464–1475 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40098-022-00636-w

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