Shear Strength of Municipal Solid Waste
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VIEW THE REPLYPublication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 6
Abstract
A comprehensive large-scale laboratory testing program using direct shear (DS), triaxial (TX), and simple shear tests was performed on municipal solid waste (MSW) retrieved from a landfill in the San Francisco Bay area to develop insights about and a framework for interpretation of the shear strength of MSW. Stability analyses of MSW landfills require characterization of the shear strength of MSW. Although MSW is variable and a difficult material to test, its shear strength can be evaluated rationally to develop reasonable estimates. The effects of waste composition, fibrous particle orientation, confining stress, rate of loading, stress path, stress-strain compatibility, and unit weight on the shear strength of MSW were evaluated in the testing program described herein. The results of this testing program indicate that the DS test is appropriate to evaluate the shear strength of MSW along its weakest orientation (i.e., on a plane parallel to the preferred orientation of the larger fibrous particles within MSW). These laboratory results and the results of more than 100 large-scale laboratory tests from other studies indicate that the DS static shear strength of MSW is best characterized by a cohesion of and a friction angle of 36° at normal stress of with the friction angle decreasing by 5° for every log cycle increase in normal stress. Other shearing modes that engage the fibrous materials within MSW (e.g., TX) produce higher friction angles. The dynamic shear strength of MSW can be estimated conservatively to be 20% greater than its static strength. These recommendations are based on tests of MSW with a moisture content below its field capacity; therefore, cyclic degradation due to pore pressure generation has not been considered in its development.
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Acknowledgments
The work described in this paper was funded by the National Science Foundation Division of Civil and Mechanical Systems under Grant Nos. NSFCMMI-0220064, NSFCMMI-0635435, and NSFCMMI-0220159 as part of a collaborative study by the University of California at Berkeley, Arizona State University, Geosyntec Consultants, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Patras. Interactions with our other research collaborators, Drs. N. Matasovic, E. Rathje, and K. Stokoe, were invaluable. The writers would also like to thank S. Chickey of Geosyntec Consultants for his help in the field investigation at the Tri-Cities landfill, B. Seos, Ph.D. student at the Arizona State University, for his help in the classification of MSW and in performing SS testing, P. Founta, A. Grizi, A. Theodoratos, and E. Zisimatou of the University of Patras for performing DS testing, and Mr. Guy Petraborg of Waste Management for assisting with the waste sampling operations at the Tri-Cities landfill. Additional information and publications from this project are available through the Geoengineer Web site at ⟨http://waste.geoengineer.org⟩.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 6 • June 2009
Pages: 709 - 722
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: May 28, 2008
Accepted: Oct 2, 2008
Published online: May 15, 2009
Published in print: Jun 2009
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