TY - JOUR
T1 - Numerical model to predict settlements coupled with landfill gas pressure in bioreactor landfills
AU - Hettiarachchi, Chamil H.
AU - Meegoda, Jay N.
AU - Tavantzis, John
AU - Hettiaratchi, Patrick
N1 - Funding Information:
The work described in this manuscript was partially supported by grants from the US National Science Foundation (Grant # OISE-0405900) and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The authors would also wish to acknowledge the constructive suggestions from two anonymous reviewers, which significantly improved the presentation.
PY - 2007/1/31
Y1 - 2007/1/31
N2 - Landfills settle due to its weight and biodegradation of waste. Biodegradation-induced settlement is a direct result of rearrangement of waste skeleton in response to the conversion of waste mass into landfill gases. Traditionally, the compressibility index based on settlement of clays is used to explain the settlement of waste. Literature review showed that there are limited research attempts of landfill settlement predictions by coupling with landfill gas generation and transport. This research describes a model which couples settlement in a bioreactor landfill with the generation and subsequent upward movement of landfill gases. The mass balance of the landfill gas was used to link settlement and gas pressures. In the absence of a closed-formed analytical solution, a computer program was developed to numerically predict the settlements and gas pressures in a bioreactor landfill using landfill geometry and waste properties. Explicitly computed settlement values were then used to predict the pressure profile implicitly. To test the mathematical formulations, a numerical exercise was performed using a single-cell hypothetical bioreactor landfill. The numerical simulation produced satisfactory trends of the settlement and the landfill gas pressure profiles.
AB - Landfills settle due to its weight and biodegradation of waste. Biodegradation-induced settlement is a direct result of rearrangement of waste skeleton in response to the conversion of waste mass into landfill gases. Traditionally, the compressibility index based on settlement of clays is used to explain the settlement of waste. Literature review showed that there are limited research attempts of landfill settlement predictions by coupling with landfill gas generation and transport. This research describes a model which couples settlement in a bioreactor landfill with the generation and subsequent upward movement of landfill gases. The mass balance of the landfill gas was used to link settlement and gas pressures. In the absence of a closed-formed analytical solution, a computer program was developed to numerically predict the settlements and gas pressures in a bioreactor landfill using landfill geometry and waste properties. Explicitly computed settlement values were then used to predict the pressure profile implicitly. To test the mathematical formulations, a numerical exercise was performed using a single-cell hypothetical bioreactor landfill. The numerical simulation produced satisfactory trends of the settlement and the landfill gas pressure profiles.
KW - Biodegradation
KW - Bioreactor landfill
KW - Mechanical compression
KW - Modeling
KW - Settlement
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2006.02.067
DO - 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2006.02.067
M3 - Article
C2 - 16647208
AN - SCOPUS:33846063712
SN - 0304-3894
VL - 139
SP - 514
EP - 522
JO - Journal of Hazardous Materials
JF - Journal of Hazardous Materials
IS - 3
ER -