Inertial distress of waste landfills

The seismic response of municipal solid waste landfills has recently drawn much attention due to the environmental, socio-economical, and public-health issues that could be raised in the case of a failure. However, there are certain technical issues that have not been fully addressed, such as the impact of local site conditions on the seismic response of a landfill.

This study presents the results of a parametric numerical simulation that has been performed in order to examine the inertial distress of a typical solid waste landfill. Emphasis is given on the special characteristics of the ground motion, while the nonlinearity of both soil and waste materials is taken into account by an iterative equivalent linear procedure.

Results indicate that soil conditions as well as the seismic excitation and the landfill characteristics play a significant and unquantifiable role on the inertial accelerations developed on the landfill.