Investigation of the Geotechnical Properties of Municipal Solid Waste

Geotechnical characterization plays a major role in the rehabilitation of waste dumps. Because the rising cost of land has made it necessary to utilize the waste dumps and development of methods for construction and assessment based on the geotechnical properties of wastes. Geotechnical properties of waste play a vital role in the reclamation of the landfill. For this it is necessary to evaluate geotechnical properties by appropriate methods as most of the geotechnical testing may not be directly applicable. Also there is a potential threat to groundwater and surface water bodies from leachates generated from the waste for a prolonged period. This book describes a detailed field and laboratory study performed to evaluate the geotechnical properties of the municipal solid wastes in the Mavallipura landfill in Bangalore and characteristics of leachate generated by the same. Also the shear modulus reduction and damping ratio curves for Mavallipura landfill has been developed using laboratory measured values and validated with semi-empirical methods.