Constitutive flow behavior of a municipal solid waste simulant at post-failure: experimental and numerical investigations

• Published in: Environmental earth sciences Vol. 75; no. 11; p. 1
• Main Authors: Dai, Zili, Huang, Yu, Deng, Wenbin, Jiang, Fuhong, Wang, Dong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.06.2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biogeosciences; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Environmental Science and Engineering; Fluid mechanics; Geochemistry; Geology; Hydrodynamics; Hydrology/Water Resources; Landfill; Landfills; Landslides & mudslides; Municipal solid waste; Original Article; Residual stress; Shear tests; Terrestrial Pollution; Viscosity coefficient; Waste disposal sites; Flow slide; Smoothed particle hydrodynamics; Municipal solid waste simulant; Model test; Ring shear test; Residual strength
• ISSN: 1866-6280; 1866-6299
• DOI: 10.1007/s12665-016-5759-2

Flow slides are relatively common environmental disasters that occur in municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills and can result in serious consequences in surrounding regions. This study presents experimental and numerical investigations into the constitutive flow behavior of a MSW stimulant at post-failure stage. First, a series of ring shear tests on MSW simulant are conducted under varying shear rates; the residual shear strength is observed to grow linearly as the shear rate increased, which behaves like a kind of viscous fluid. Based on the results, the concept of viscosity coefficient is introduced and a viscous fluid model is established to describe the constitutive behavior of the MSW simulant at post-failure stage. This model is finally incorporated into a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code to simulate a flow slide model test. The numerical results agree well with the test data, thus verifying the applicability and reliability of the viscous fluid model to describe flow slide disasters in landfills.