Extreme Compaction Effects on Gas Transport Parameters and Estimated Climate Gas Exchange for a Landfill Final Cover Soil
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 137, Issue 7
Abstract
Landfill sites have been implicated in greenhouse warming scenarios as a significant source of atmospheric methane. In this study, the effects of extreme compaction on the two main soil-gas transport parameters, the gas diffusion coefficient () and the intrinsic air permeability (), and the cumulative methane oxidation rate in a landfill cover soil were investigated. Extremely compacted landfill cover soil exhibited negligible inactive soil-air contents for both and . In addition, greater and were observed as compared with normal compacted soils at the same soil-air content (), likely because of reduced water-blockage effects under extreme compaction. These phenomena are not included in existing predictive models for and . On the basis of the measured data, new predictive models for and were developed with model parameters (representing air-filled pore connectivity and water-blockage effects) expressed as functions of dry density (). The developed and models together with soil-water retention data for soils at normal and extreme compaction ( and ) implied that extremely compacted soils will exhibit lower and at natural field-water content ( of soil-water matric potential) because of much lower soil-air content. Numerical simulations of methane gas transport, including a first-order methane oxidation rate, were performed for differently compacted soils by using the new predictive model. Model results showed that compaction-induced difference in soil-air content at a given soil-water matric potential condition is likely the most important parameter governing methane oxidation rates in extremely compacted landfill cover soil.
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Acknowledgments
This study was made possible by the grant-in-aid for Scientific Research No. UNSPECIFIED206192 and No. UNSPECIFIED18360224 from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and by a research grant from the Innovative Research Organization, Saitama University. This study was in part supported by the projects Gas Diffusivity in Intact Unsaturated Soil (“GADIUS”) and Soil Infrastructure, Interfaces, and Translocation Processes in Inner Space (“Soil-It-Is”) from the Danish Research Council for Technology and Production Sciences. We especially acknowledge the careful and dedicated laboratory work by former B.S. student Yoshiharu Fujiwara and M.S. student Yuichi Sugimoto, Saitama University.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 137 • Issue 7 • July 2011
Pages: 653 - 662
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© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Jul 23, 2009
Accepted: Oct 8, 2010
Published online: Oct 20, 2010
Published in print: Jul 1, 2011
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