Modeling Coupled Hydromechanical Behavior of Landfilled Waste in Bioreactor Landfills: Numerical Formulation and Validation
Publication: Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 21, Issue 1
Abstract
Bioreactor landfills involving leachate recirculation are emerging as the preferred option for managing municipal solid waste (MSW). Effective bioreactor landfill performance can be achieved by ensuring uniform and adequate moisture (leachate) distribution in landfilled MSW. This paper presents a numerical two-phase flow model as a tool to predict hydraulic behavior (moisture distribution and pore fluid pressures) in unsaturated MSW under leachate recirculation, mechanical response (stress-strain behavior), and coupled hydromechanical interactions of MSW in landfills. The selected mathematical model is the Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua (FLAC), which assumes leachate and landfill gas as two immiscible phases. The governing equations and numerical implementation are presented along with the general model implementation considerations. The model is validated by simulating the published laboratory studies, field studies, and published modeled studies. Overall, it is shown that the mathematical model is capable of providing information necessary for the design of effective bioreactor landfills by incorporating coupled hydromechanical processes.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This project was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (grant CMMI # 0600441), which is gratefully acknowledged.
References
Bjarngard, A., and Edgers, L. (1990). “Settlement of municipal solid waste landfills.” Proc., 13th Annual Madison Waste Conf., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI.
Carpenter, P. J., Grellier, S., Reddy, K. R., Adib, R., Peters, C., and Gangathulasi, J. (2008). “Investigating the interior of a landfill cell with leachate injection using electromagnetic conductivity and ground-penetrating radar surveys.” Proc., 21st Symp. on the Application of Geophysics to Engineering and Environmental Problems (SAGEEP), Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society (EEGS), Denver.
Dixon, N., and Jones, D. R. V. (2005). “Engineering properties of municipal solid waste.” Geotext. Geomembr., 23(3), 205–233.
Durmusoglu, E., Corapcioglu, M. Y., and Tuncay, K. (2005). “Landfill settlement with decomposition and gas generation.” J. Environ. Eng., 1311–1321.
El-Fadel, M., and Khoury, R. (2000). “Modeling settlement in MSW landfills: A critical review.” Crit. Rev. Environ. Sci. Technol., 30(3), 327–361.
FLAC (Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua) version 7.0 [Computer software]. Minneapolis, ITASCA Consulting Group Inc. (ICGI).
Giri, R. K., and Reddy, K. R. (2014a). “Slope stability of bioreactor landfills during leachate injection: Effects of heterogeneous and anisotropic municipal solid waste conditions.” Waste Manage. Res., 32(3), 186–197.
Giri, R. K., and Reddy, K. R. (2014b). “Slope stability of bioreactor landfills during leachate injection: Effects of unsaturated hydraulic properties of municipal solid waste.” Int. J. Geotech. Eng., 8(2), 144–156.
Gourc, J. P., Staub, M. J., and Conte, M. (2010). “Decoupling MSW settlement into mechanical and biochemical processes: Modelling and validation on large-scale setups.” Waste Manage., 30(8), 1556–1568.
Grellier, S., Reddy, K., Gangathulasi, J., Adib, R., and Peters, C. (2006). “Electrical resistivity tomography imaging of leachate recirculation in Orchard Hills Landfill.” Proc., SWANA Conf., Solid Waste Association of North America, Silver Spring, MD.
Haydar, M. M., and Khire, M. V. (2005). “Leachate recirculation using horizontal trenches in bioreactor landfills.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 837–847.
Hettiarachchi, C. H., Meegoda, J. N., and Hettiarachchi, P. (2009). “Effect of gas and moisture on modeling of bioreactor landfill settlement.” Waste Manage., 29(3), 1018–1025.
Hudson, A. P., White, J. K., Beaven, R. P., and Powrie, W. (2004). “Modeling the compression behavior of landfilled domestic waste.” Waste Manage., 24(3), 259–269.
ITRC (Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council). (2006). “Characterization, design, construction, and monitoring of bioreactor landfills.” Washington, DC.
Koerner, R. M., and Soong, T. Y. (2000). “Leachate in landfills: The stability issues.” Geotext. Geomembr., 18(5), 293–309.
Kulkarni, H. S. (2012). “Optimization of leachate recirculation systems in bioreactor landfill.” Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Civil and Materials Engineering, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago.
Machado, S. L., Carvalho, M. F., and Vilar, O. M. (2002). “Constitutive model for municipal solid waste.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 940–951.
Machado, S. L., Vilar, O. M., and Carvalho, M. F. (2008). “Constitutive model for long term municipal solid waste mechanical behavior.” Comput. Geotech., 35(5), 775–790.
McDougall, J. (2007). “A hydro-bio-mechanical model for settlement and other behaviour in landfilled waste.” Comput. Geotech., 34(4), 229–246.
Olivier, F., and Gourc, J. P. (2005). “Hydro-physico-mechanics of a mechanically pretreated waste in a large scale laboratory cell.” Proc., Int. Workshop on Hydro-Physico-Mechanics of Landfills, International Waste Working Group (IWWG), Hamburg, Germany.
Olivier, F., and Gourc, J. P. (2007). “Hydro-mechanical behavior of municipal solid waste subject to leachate recirculation in a large-scale compression reactor cell.” Waste Manag., 27(1), 44–58.
Reddy, K. R., Hettiarachchi, H., Parakalla, N., Gangathulasi, J., Bogner, J., and Lagier, T. (2009a). “Hydraulic conductivity of the MSW in landfills.” J. Environ. Eng., 677–683.
Reddy, K. R., Hettiarachchi, H., Parakalla, N., Gangathulasi, J., Bogner, J. E., and Lagier, T. (2009b). “Compressibility and shear strength of municipal solid waste under short-term leachate recirculation operations.” Waste Manage. Res., 27(6), 578–587.
Reinhart, D. R., and Townsend, T. G. (1997). Landfill bioreactor design and operation, Lewis, New York.
Sharma, H. D., and Reddy, K. R. (2004). Geoenvironmental engineering: Site remediation, waste containment, and emerging waste management technologies, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ.
Sivakumar Babu, G., Reddy, K., Chouskey, S., and Kulkarni, H. (2010). “Prediction of long-term municipal solid waste landfill settlement using constitutive model.” Pract. Period. Hazard. Toxic Radioact. Waste Manage., 139–150.
Sowers, G. F. (1973). “Settlement of waste disposal fills.” Proc., 8th Int. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, International Society for Soil Mechanics Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), London, 207–210.
Staub, M., Gourc, J., Drut, N., Stoltz, G., and Mansour, A. A. (2013). “Large-scale bioreactor pilots for monitoring the long-term hydromechanics of MSW.” J. Hazard. Toxic Radioactive Waste, 285–294.
Staub, M. J., et al. (2010). “Long-term moisture measurements in large-scale bioreactor cells using TDR and neutron probes.” J. Hazard. Mater., 180(1–3), 165–172.
Stoltz, G., Tinet, A. J., Staub, M. J., Oxarango, L., and Gourc, J. P. (2012). “Moisture retention properties of municipal solid waste in relation to compression.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 535–543.
USEPA. (2010). “Municipal solid waste generation, recycling, and disposal in the United States: Facts and figures for 2009. Solid waste and emergency response.” Washington, DC.
van Genuchten, M. T. (1980). “A closed-form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J., 44(5), 892–898.
Wall, D. K., and Zeiss, C. (1995). “Municipal landfill biodegradation and settlement.” J. Environ. Eng., 214–224.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 21 • Issue 1 • January 2017
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 23, 2014
Accepted: Apr 21, 2015
Published online: Jul 6, 2015
Discussion open until: Dec 6, 2015
Published in print: Jan 1, 2017
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.