Validation of Generic Municipal Solid Waste Material Properties for Seismic Design of Landfills

In recent years, notable progress has been made with respect to the understanding of the mechanics of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) response, and hence, generic MSW properties for static and seismic design of MSW landfills have been recommended. However, it is not clear if seismic design of MSW landfills based upon these generic material properties is conservative, and if it is, to what degree. An attempt is made to evaluate how adequate (i.e., conservative) seismic design of solid waste landfills based upon published generic material properties is. The basis for evaluation is one of very few well documented landfill case histories (the Oil Landfill Case History) and selected generic material parameter sets. The results indicate that the use of generic material parameter sets at this site results in either reasonable prediction or slight over-prediction of recorded ground motions. The results of the parametric studies documented in this paper provide further insight on how to approach seismic design of MSW landfills.