Berm design to reduce risks of catastrophic slope failures at solid waste disposal sites

Abstract

Existing waste disposal sites are being strained by exceeding their volumetric capacities because of exponentially increasing rates of municipal solid waste generation worldwide, especially in densely populated metropolises. Over the past 40 years, six well-documented and analyzed disposal sites experienced catastrophic failure. This research presents a novel analysis and design method for implementation of a series of in-situ earth berms to slow down the movement of waste material flow following a catastrophic failure. This is the first study of its kind that employs a dynamic landslide analysis model, DAN-W, and the Voellmy rheological model to approximate solid waste avalanche flow. A variety of single and multiple berm configuration scenarios were developed and tested to find an optimum configuration of the various earth berm geometries and number of berms to achieve desired energy dissipation and reduction in total waste material runout length. The case study application of the novel mitigation measure shows that by constructing a series of six relatively inexpensive 3 m high earth berms at an optimum distance of 250 m from the slope toe, the total runout length of 1000 m and associated fatalities of the Leuwigajah dumpsite catastrophic failure in Bandung, Indonesia, could have been reduced by half.

Limit Equilibrium Analysis of Landfill Instability Based on Actual Failure Surface

“…The retaining dam of the landfill can significantly improve the stability of the slope of the landfill and effectively prevent the slope instability disaster of the garbage dump [22,34]. In this section, taking an actual failure surface angle of 100 • , under the condition of water level h = 6 m, the influence of the garbage dam on overall slope stability was analyzed by changing the height and dip angle of the dam body.…”

Effects of anisotropy in correlation structure on reliability-based slope stability analysis of a landfill

“…It is worth noting that due to the uncertainty of the geotechnical properties of the waste, there are difficulties and challenges in selecting the appropriate values for using in landfill design. These problems are due to the heterogeneity of the accumulated waste, the time-dependent behaviour, the problems related to the lack of standard sampling methods, and in situ and laboratory tests, and the strain incompatibility between the waste and its underlying materials (De Stefano et al, 2016; Fowmes et al, 2006; Gharabaghi et al, 2008; Jahanfar et al, 2017a). Indeed, MSW is a system of heterogeneous materials that, even when in a specific landfill, its phases and components are highly variable and exhibit variability in both vertical and horizontal directions.…”

A novel risk assessment method for landfill slope failure: Case study application for Bhalswa Dumpsite, India

“…Generally, rheology models are divided into cohesive and frictional types. As discussed in detail in De Stefano et al (2016), MSW material flows are a mixture of solids and fluids that are categorised as frictional types (better defined by Voellmy rheology models) rather than cohesive types (better defined by Bingham rheology models).…”

“…Recently, several studies have used these new models successfully to describe a large deformation of landfill flow slides (Dai et al, 2016;De Stefano et al, 2016;Huang and Cheng, 2016;Huang et al, 2013). Huang and Cheng (2016) used Bingham rheology to simulate landfill flow slides.…”

“…At this point, the risk management procedure would be required to mitigate the risk of slope failure. De Stefano et al (2016) studied the effect of active options of risk mitigation such as retaining walls and stabilising berms in front of slopes. Furthermore, passive options of risk mitigation include removing and replacing the outer waste, removing the residents to the safe location and installing a warning system so people can be evacuated in case of waste movement (Fell et al, 2005).…”