Study of the Mechanical Behavior of Municipal Solid Waste Landfill Using a Viscoplastic Constitutive Model

As long as there is the need for disposal of  household  waste there will be the need to understand  the phenomena taking place in storage facilities for nonhazardous waste (municipal solid waste landfill). The understanding of landfill technology is of great importance because of its ever-changing state, whether mechanical, chemical or hydrological. In this context, there is a need to better understand the stress-strain behavior evolution with time of the landfilled waste. Based on triaxial and oedometric compression tests of municipal solid waste samples  ranging from fresh  to degraded waste, a viscoplastic constitutive model (Burgers creep-viscoplastic model) is used to describe the behavior of the municipal solid waste under loading. This model is able to adequately capture the stress-strain and pore water pressure response of the municipal solid waste at different ages. To illustrate its applicability, settlements due to the incremental loading of waste with time are predicted for a typical municipal solid waste landfill. The proposed model predicts the total settlement of a storage facilityin a range similar to results published in the literature. An extension of the studied municipal solid waste landfill was also investigated.