Laboratory investigation of compaction characteristics of fresh and degraded municipal solid waste

com-pacted MSW increases the placement efficiency and thus reduces the space requirement for landfills.The composition of MSW,degradation,and compactive efforts are the key factors that control the compaction characteristics of MSW.This paper presents the laboratory investigation of compaction characteristics of fresh and aged MSW at a wide range of compactive efforts.Fresh MSW(S_(1)),Windrows sample(S_(2))of an age of 2 months,5-year-old MSW(S_(3)),10-year-old MSW(S_(4)),and 15-year-old MSW(S_(5))were collected from the working phase of the solid waste management site,Vilholi Nasik,(MH)India.Compaction was carried in 1000 mL capacity mold under four different energy levels,i.e.,552(E_(1)),1125(E_(2)),2682(E_(3)),and 5364(E4)kJ/m^(3).The results showed that the maximum dry density(γ_(dmax))was observed less in the S_(1)sample at the standard compactive effort.As the age of the sample increase from fresh to 5 years,γ_(dmax)was more with lesser optimum moisture content(w_(opt))because of the completion of the biodegradation process.No further change in compaction characteristics was observed once the biodegradation process was finished.The study shows that the particle size of MSW gets reduced as the age of the sample increased.This reduces the particle size of MSW is one of the contributing factors to increasingγ_(dmax).When compactive energy is changed from E_(1)to E4 theγ_(dmax)increased and w_(opt)decreased for all the samples.A normalized w_(opt)and compaction energy correlation is proposed in this study.The correlation can get compaction characteristics of fresh and aged MSW at any compactive effort.