Influence of Leachate Recirculation on Landfill Degradation and Biogas Production

Population growth combined with the rising standard of living of people around the world is the reason for the ever-increasing production of waste which management is costing states a lot of money for its disposal. Among available waste treatment techniques, landfill is one of the most promoted waste management techniques with the emergence of the bioreactor concept. However, the control of biodegradation parameters in order to accelerate waste stabilization is an important issue. For environmental and economic reasons, the technique of leachate recirculation by injection into the waste is increasingly used to improve the degradation of landfilled waste. The injection of leachate is possible using vertical boreholes, horizontal pipes, infiltration ponds or a combination of these. Indeed, moisture is the main factor in waste degradation and biogas production. The migration of leachate to the bottom of the landfill creates low moisture in the upper areas of the landfill reducing the growth of microbial populations. This results in low or no biogas production. The main objective of the present work is to develop a numerical model of leachate recirculation by injection into the waste to rewet the waste and restart biological activity. The analysis of the results shows that the diffusion of the wet front increases with time and depth. The lateral widening of the wet front is slow in relation to the progression of the wet front towards the bottom of the waste cell. This indicates the predominance of gravity effects over diffusion phenomena. The results reveal that the distributed re-injection is the best mode of leachate recirculation because the moisture distribution on the whole waste mass is totally satisfactory and the biogas generation is more important. Leachate recirculation campaigns should be done periodically to rewet the waste, boost microbial activity and hope for a quicker stabilization of the landfill.

The role of velocity derivative skewness in understanding non-equilibrium turbulence

The turbulence governed by the Navier-Stokes equation is paramount in many physical processes.However,it has been considered as a challenging problem due to its inherent nonlinearity,non-equilibrium,and complexity.Herein,we review the connections between the velocity derivative skewness Sk and the non-equilibrium properties of turbulence.Sk,a reasonable candidate for describing the non-equilibrium turbulence,which varies during the non-equilibrium procedure.A lot of experimental or numerical evidences have shown that the perturbation of energy spectrum,which associated with the excitation of large scales,results in an obvious variation of Sk,and Sk is a negative value in this rapid energy decay process.The variation of positive Sk is closely related to the perturbation of transfer spectrum,and this corresponds to the backward energy transfer process.In addition,the skewness characterizes the production(or reduction)rate of enstrophy due to vortex stretching(or compression).Using the transport equation of turbulent energy dissipation rate and enstrophy,it is possible to establish a theoretical connection between skewness and the non-equilibrium turbulence.It is expected that this work could trigger the rapid advancement of the future studies of non-equilibrium turbulence,and also the improvement of turbulence models.

Modeling of Heat Transfers in Bioreactive Household Waste Storage Facilities: Spatial and Temporal Distributions

In order to enhance the production of biogas and to study the thermal behavior of waste, a numerical study of fluid flows and heat transfers within household waste was developed to predict the distributions of thermal fields. The mathematical model is based on the conservation of mass and energy equations. The resulting system of equations is discretized using the finite volume method and solved using the Thomas algorithm. The results of the model studied are compared with the numerical and site measurements results from other authors. The results have been found to be in good agreement. The results show that the mathematical model is able to reproduce the thermal behavior in anaerobic phase in landfills. The isotherms revealed that temperatures are lower in the upper part of the waste cell, very high in the core and decrease slightly in the bottom of the cell due to the biodegradation of waste.

Modeling the Unsteady Flow of a Newtonian Fluid Originating from the Hole of an Open Cylindrical Reservoir

This work deals with the modeling of the unsteady Newtonian fluid flow associated with an open cylindrical reservoir.This reservoir presents a hole on the right bottom wall.Fluid volume variation,heat and mass transfers are neglected.The unsteady governing equations are based on the conservation of mass and momentum.A finite volume technique is used to solve the non-dimensional equations and related boundary conditions.The algebraic system of equations resulting from the discretization process are solved by means of the THOMAS algorithm.For pressure-velocity coupling,the SIMPLE algorithm(Semi Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations)is used.Results for laminar flow(Re<1000),including the pressure and velocities profiles as well as the streamlines in the reservoir are presented.Moreover,the effects of the D/d and H0/D ratios and Reynolds number Re on the fluid flow are discussed.It is shown that the velocities and pressure depend essentially on the reservoir size.To validate the model,the present results have been compared with Zhou et al.’s results,Poiseuille’s and Bernoulli’s exact solution.

Mathematical Constraints in Multiscale Subgrid-Scale Modeling of Nonlinear Systems

To shed light on the subgrid-seale （SGS） modeling methodology of nonlinear systems such as the Navier-Stokes turbulence, we define the concepts of assumption and restriction in the modeling procedure, which are shown by generalized derivation of three general mathematical constraints for different combinations of restrictions. These constraints are verified numerically in a one-dimensional nonlinear advection equation. This study is expected to inspire future research on the SGS modeling methodology of nonlinear systems.

Soil Nature Effect Investigation on the Ground-to-Air Heat Exchanger for the Passive Cooling of Rooms

The building sector consumes much energy either for cooling or heating and is associated to greenhouse gas emissions. To meet energy and environmental challenges, the use of ground-to-air heat exchangers for preheating and cooling buildings has recently received considerable attention. They provide substantial energy savings and contribute to the improvement of thermal comfort in buildings. For these systems, the ground temperature plays the main role. The present work aims to investigate numerically the influence of the nature of soil on the thermal behavior of the ground-to-air heat exchanger used for building passive cooling. We have taken into account in this work the influence of the soil nature by considering three types of dry soil: clay soil, sandy-clay soil and sandy soil. The mixed convection equations governing the heat transfers in the earth-to-air heat exchanger have been presented and discretized using the finite difference method with an Alternate Direction Implicit (ADI) scheme. The resulting algebraic equations are then solved using the algorithm of Thomas combined with an iterative Gauss-Seidel procedure. The results show that the flow is dominated by forced convection. The examination of the sensitivity of the model to the type of soil shows that the distributions of contours of streamlines, isotherms, isovalues of moisture are less affected by the variations of the nature of soil through the variation of the diffusivity of the soil. However, it is observed that the temperature values obtained for the clay soil are higher while the sandy soil shows lower temperature values. The values of the ground-to-air heat exchanger efficiency are only slightly influenced by the nature of the soil. Nevertheless, we note a slightly better efficiency for the sandy soil than for the sandy-clayey silt and clayey soils. This result shows that a sandy soil would be more suitable for geothermal system installations.

Recent understanding on the subgrid-scale modeling of large-eddy simulation in physical space

In the last 50 years,the methodology of large-eddy simulation(LES)has been greatly developed,while lots of different subgridscale(SGS)models have appeared.However,the understanding of the procedure of SGS modeling is still not clear.The present contribution aims at reviewing the recent SGS models and,more importantly,expressing our recent understanding on the SGS modeling of LES in physical space.Taking the Kolmogorov equation for filtered quantities(KEF)as an example,it is argued that the KEF alone is not enough to be a closure method.Three physical laws are then introduced to complete this closure procedure and are expected to inspire the future researches of SGS modeling.

Non-equilibrium turbulent phenomena in transitional flat plate boundary-layer flows

Many recent laboratory experiments and numerical simulations support a non-equilibrium dissipation scaling in decaying turbulence before it reaches an equilibrium state.By analyzing a direct numerical simulation(DNS)database of a transitional boundary-layer flow,we show that the transition region and the non-equilibrium turbulence region,which are located in different streamwise zones,present different non-equilibrium scalings.Moreover,in the wall-normal direction,the viscous sublayer,log layer,and outer layer show different non-equilibrium phenomena which differ from those in grid-generated turbulence and transitional channel flows.These findings are expected to shed light on the modelling of various types of non-equilibrium turbulent flows.

A closure model on velocity structure functions in homogeneous isotropic turbulence

Closure models started from Chou＇s work have been developed for more than 70 years, aiming at providing analytical tools to describe turbulent flows in the spectral space. In this study, a preliminary attempt is presented to introduce a closure model in the physical space, using the velocity structure functions as key parameters. The present closure model appears to qualitatively reproduce the asymptotic scaling behav- iors at small and large scales, despite some inappropriate behaviors such as oscillations. Therefore, further improvements of the present model are expected to provide appropriate descriptions of turbulent flows in the physical space.

A Closure for Isotropic Turbulence Based on Extended Scale Similarity Theory in Physical Space

The closure of a turbulence field is a longstanding fundamental problem, while most closure models are introduced in spectral space. Inspired by Chou＇s quasi-normal closure method in spectral space, we propose an analytical closure model for isotropic turbulence based on the extended scale similarity theory of the velocity structure function in physical space. The assumptions and certain approximations are justified with direct numerical simulation. The asymptotic scaling properties are reproduced by this new closure method, in comparison to the classical Batchelor model.

Modified k-ω model using kinematic vorticity for corner separation in compressor cascades

A new method of modifying the conventional k-w turbulence model for comer separation is proposed in this paper. The production term in the w equation is modified using kinematic vorticity considering fluid rotation and deformation in complex geometric boundary conditions. The corner separation flow in linear compressor cascades is calculated using the original k-w model, the modified k-w model and the Reynolds stress model （RSM）. The numerical results of the modified model are compared with the available experimental data, as well as the corresponding results of the original k-w model and RSM. In terms of accuracy, the modified model, which significantly improves the performance of the original k-w model for predicting comer separation, is quite competitive with the RSM. However, the modified model, which has considerably lower computational cost is more robust than the RSM.