Effect of Real Bentonite Cake on Slug Test Analysis for Slurry Trench Wall
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 139, Issue 7
Abstract
The slug test is a viable method in estimating the hydraulic conductivity of the slurry trench wall backfill because of its ability to consider a more representative volume of the backfill and to reflect the in situ performance of the construction. A three-dimensional numerical model is developed to simulate the slug test in a slurry trench wall with the presence of bentonite cake on the interface boundary between the wall and the surrounding soil formation. Influential factors such as wall width (i.e., proximity of wall boundary), well deviation, vertical position of the well intake section, and compressibility of the wall backfill are taken into account in the model. The experimentally obtained hydraulic properties of the bentonite cake are also incorporated in a series of slug test simulations. The simulation results are then examined to evaluate the bentonite cake effect in analyzing practical slug test results in the slurry trench wall. The simulation results show that the modified line-fitting method can be used without any reduction factor for the slug test in the slurry trench wall with the presence of bentonite cake. A case study is reanalyzed with the assumption of existing bentonite cake. The results are compared with the previously reported results by the approaches used for the case of no bentonite cake (constant-head boundary) and upper-bound solution (no-flux boundary). The modified line-fitting method and the type curve method produce similar results for slurry walls with bentonite cakes. The case study results demonstrate the importance of the bentonite cake effect in estimating the hydraulic conductivity of the slurry wall backfill.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The current research was financially supported by the Korea Research Foundation (Grant No. D00477) and BK21 (T0901451) of the Korea Research Foundation.
References
Anderson, M., and Woessner, W. (1992). Applied groundwater modeling: Simulation of flow and advective transport, Academic, San Diego.
Bouwer, H., and Rice, R. C. (1976). “A slug test for determining hydraulic conductivity of unconfined aquifer with completely or partially penetrating wells.” Water Resour. Res., 12(3), 423–428.
Bradbury, K. R., and Muldoon, M. A. (1990). “Hydraulic conductivity determinations in unlithified glacial and fluvial materials.” Ground water and vadose zone monitoring, D. M. Nielsen and A. I. Johnsen, eds., ASTM, Philadelphia, 138–151.
Braester, C., and Thunvik, R. (1984). “Determination of formation permeability by double-packer tests.” J. Hydrol., 72(3-4), 375–389.
Britton, J. P. (2001). “Soil-bentonite slurry trench walls: Hydraulic conductivity and contaminant transport.” Ph.D. dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ., Blacksburg, VA.
Britton, J. P., Filz, G. M., and Herring, W. E. (2004). “Measuring the hydraulic conductivity of soil-bentonite backfill.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 130(12), 1250–1258.
Britton, J. P., Filz, G. M., and Herring, W. E. (2005). “Slug tests in soil-bentonite slurry trench walls using a push-in piezometer tip.” Waste containment and remediation, (CD-ROM), J. C. Evans, ed., ASCE, Reston, VA.
Britton, J. P., Filz, G. M., and Little, J. C. (2002). “Shape factors for single-well tests in soil-bentonite cutoff walls.” Proc., 4th Int. Congress on Environmental Geotechnics, L. G. de Mello and S. S. Almeida, eds., Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 639–644.
Bruner, D. G., and Lutenegger, A. J. (1994). “Measurement of saturated hydraulic conductivity in fine-grained glacial tills in Iowa: Comparison of in situ and laboratory methods.” Hydraulic conductivity and waste contaminant transport in soil, D. E. Daniel and S. J. Trautwein, eds., ASTM, Philadelphia, 255–265.
Butler, J. J. (1996). “Slug tests in situ characterization: Some practical consideration.” Environ. Geosci., 3(2), 154–163.
Chapuis, R. P., and Chenaf, D. (2002). “Slug tests in a confined aquifer: Experimental results in a large soil tank and numerical modeling.” Can. Geotech. J., 39(1), 14–21.
Choi, H. (2002). “Analysis of slug tests to determine hydraulic conductivity of vertical slurry trench walls.” Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL.
Choi, H. (2007). “Numerical model for analyzing slug tests in vertical cutoff walls.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 133(10), 1249–1258.
Choi, H., and Daniel, D. E. (2006a). “Slug test analysis in vertical cutoff walls. I: Analysis methods.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 132(4), 429–438.
Choi, H., and Daniel, D. E. (2006b). “Slug test analysis in vertical cutoff walls. II: Applications.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 132(4), 439–447.
Choi, H., Nguyen, T.-B., and Lee, C. (2008). “Slug test analysis to evaluate permeability of compressible materials.” Ground Water, 46(4), 647–652.
Chung, J., and Daniel, D. E. (2008). “Modified fluid loss test as an improved measure of hydraulic conductivity for bentonite.” Geotech. Test. J., 31(3), 243–251.
Cooper, H. H., Bredehoeft, J. D., and Papadopulos, I. S. (1967). “Response of a finite-diameter well to an instantaneous charge of water.” Water Resour. Res., 3(1), 263–269.
Daniel, D. E., and Choi, H. (1999). “Hydraulic conductivity evaluation of vertical barrier walls.” Geo-engineering for underground facilities, G. Fernandez and R. A. Bauer, eds., ASCE, Reston, VA, 140–161.
D’Appolonia, D. J. (1980). “Soil-bentonite slurry trench cutoffs.” J. Geotech. Eng., 106(4), 399–417.
EMCON Associates, Inc. (1995). M-11/15, M-17/21, and M-26/E-29 slurry walls postconstruction performance evaluation, EMCON Associates, Inc., Brick, NJ.
Evans, J. C. (1994). “Hydraulic conductivity of vertical cutoff walls.” Hydraulic conductivity and waste contaminant transport in soil, D. E. Daniel and S. J. Trautwein, eds., ASTM, Philadelphia, 79–94.
Evans, J. C., Costa, M. J., and Cooley, B. (1995). “The state-of-stress in soil-bentonite slurry trench slurry trench walls.” Geoenvironmental 2000: Characterization, containment, remediation and performance in environmental geotechnique, Y. B. Acar and D. E. Daniel, eds., ASCE, Reston, VA, 1173–1191.
Fetter, C. W. (1994). Applied hydrogeology, 3rd Ed., MacMillan, New York.
Filz, G. M. (1996). “Consolidation stresses in soil-bentonite backfilled trench.” Proc., 2nd Int. Congress on Environmental Geotechnics, M. Kamon, ed., Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 497–502.
Filz, G. M., Boyer, R. D., and Davidson, R. R. (1997). “Bentonite-water slurry rheology and slurry trench wall trench stability.” In situ remediation of the geoenvironment, J. C. Evans, ed., ASCE, Reston, VA, 139–153.
Filz, G. M., Henry, L. B., Heslin, G. M., and Davidson, R. R. (2001). “Determining hydraulic conductivity of soil-bentonite using the API filter press.” Geotech. Test. J., 24(1), 61–71.
Freeze, R. A., and Cherry, J. A. (1979). Groundwater, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
GMS 3.1 [Computer software]. Provo, UT, Brigham Young University (BYU).
Henry, L. B., Filz, G. M., and Davidson, R. R. (1998). “Formation and properties of bentonite filter cakes.” Filtration and drainage in geotechnical/ geoenvironmental engineering, L. N. Reddi and M. V. S. Bonalo, eds., ASCE, Reston, VA, 69–88.
Herzog, B. L., and Morse, W. J. (1986). “Hydraulic conductivity at a hazardous waste disposal site: Comparison of laboratory and field-determined values.” Waste Manage. Res., 4(1), 177–187.
Hvorslev, M. J. (1951). “Time lag and soil permeability in groundwater observation.” Bulletin No. 36, Waterways Experiment Station, U.S. Army Corps of Engineering, Vicksburg, MS.
Hyder, Z., Butler, J. J., McElwee, C. D., and Liu, W. (1994). “Slug tests in partially penetrating wells.” Water Resour. Res., 30(11), 2945–2957.
Khoury, M. A., Fayad, P. H., and Ladd, R. S. (1992). “Design, construction and performance of a soil-bentonite cutoff wall constructed in two stages.” Slurry wall: Design, construction, and quality control, D. B. Paul, R. R. Davidson, and N. J. Cavalli, eds., ASTM, Philadelphia, 289–308.
Lee, H. W., and Chang, P. W. (2007). “Correlation between the laboratory and in-situ permeability for the embankments.” KSCE J. Civ. Eng., 11(1), 1–5.
Nash, K. L. (1974). “Stability of trenches filled with fluids.” J. Constr. Div., 100(4), 533–542.
Nguyen, T.-B. (2011). “Performance of soil-bentonite slurry walls: Flow rates and contaminant containment.” Ph.D. dissertation, Korea Univ., Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Nguyen, T.-B., Lee, C., and Choi, H. (2010a). “Estimation of hydraulic conductivity of bentonite filter cake in laboratory.” Proc., 6th Int. Congress on Environmental Geotechnics, M. Datta, R. K. Srivastava, G. V. Ramana, and J. T. Shahu, eds., McGraw Hill, New Delhi, India, 1393–1396.
Nguyen, T.-B., Lee, C., and Choi, H. (2011). “Slug test analysis in vertical cutoff walls with consideration of filter cake.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 137(8), 785–797.
Nguyen, T.-B., Lee, C., Kim, S., and Choi, H. (2010b). “Modification of the Bouwer and Rice method to a cutoff wall with a filter cake.” Ground Water, 48(6), 898–902.
Soroush, A., and Soroush, M. (2005). “Parameters affecting the thickness of bentonite cake in cutoff wall construction: Case study and physical modeling.” Can. Geotech. J., 42(2), 646–654.
Tallard, G. (1984). “Slurry trenches for containing hazardous wastes.” Civ. Eng., 54(2), 41–45.
Teeter, R. M., and Clemence, S. P. (1986). “In-place permeability measurement of slurry trench cutoff walls.” Proc., Use of In Situ Tests in Geotechnical Engineering, S. P. Clemence, ed., ASCE, New York, 1049–1061.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). (2010). “Guide specification for construction soil-bentonite (S-B) slurry trench.” UFGS-02 35 27, USACE, New York.
Xanthakos, P. P. (1979). Slurry walls, McGraw Hill, New York.
Yang, D. S., Luscher, U., Kimoto, I., and Takeshima, S. (1993). “SMW wall for seepage control in levee reconstruction.” Proc., 3rd Int. Conf. on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering, S. Prakash, ed., Univ. of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, MO, 487–492.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 5, 2012
Accepted: Sep 12, 2012
Published online: Sep 15, 2012
Published in print: Jul 1, 2013
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.