The Efect of Rich Synthetic Copper-rich Solution on Antiseepage Dense Pre-hydration Geosynthetic Clay Liner

Dense pre-hydrated geosynthetic clay liners(DPH GCLs)were manufactured as innovative materials accompanied by the advantage of lower hydraulic conductivity(k).The k of DPH GCLs permeated with de-ionized water(DIW)was 9.8×10^(−12) m/s.The effect of Cu^(2+)synthetic solution on DPH GCLs was discussed.Furthermore,the effect mechanism was studied on the basis of test technologies.A significant adverse impact on hydraulic performance of DPH GCLs is found when the concentration of Cu^(2+)is greater than 1 g/L.SEM,XRD,XRF,FTIR,and XPS analyses show that the effect of Cu^(2+)on DPH GCLs includes two steps.Firstly,Cu^(2+)interacts with hydrophobic organic matter(HOM),and the adhesion of bentonite is destroyed,and some holes appear.The Cu^(2+)contacts with bentonite directly,and Cu^(2+)interacts with bentonite through ion exchange.Passivated phenomenon occurs on the surface of the bentonite,and swelling ability of bentonite is reduced,which causes permeable DPH GCLs.

Impact of consolidation pressure on contaminant migration in clay liner

Consolidation deformation occurs in clay liners under the self-weight of wastes at a simple garbage dump or dredged sediment dump, which leads to a decrease in the porosity. However. the migration of contaminants in clay liners is influenced by the porosity. Thus, the impact of consolidation deformation of clay liners on the migration of contaminants cannot be ignored. Based on Biot＇s consolidation theory, the contaminant migration theory, and consideration of the three kinds of migration mechanisms of convection, diffusion, and adsorption, a one-dimensional migration model of contaminants in deforming porous media was established, and the finite difference method was adopted to obtain the numerical solutions for an established initial-boundary value problem. The impact of consolidation pressure on the migration law of a contaminant was studied. The results show that, regardless of adsorption modes, different consolidation pressures have similar impacts on the migration law of the contaminant. Namely, over a certain migration time, the greater the consolidation pressure is, the smaller the migration depth of the contaminant. The results also show that, while the migration time increases, the impact of a certain increment of consolidation pressure on the variation of contaminant concentration with the depth increases gradually and, while the migration depth increases, the impact of a certain increment of consolidation pressure on the variation of the contaminant concentration with time increases gradually.

Shear Strength Behavior of Two Landfill Clay Liners

Direct shear tests were conducted to obtain both the shear strength ofcompacted clay liners (CCLs) specimens and the interface shear strength between compacted clay linerand base soil. These experiments were conducted under the conditions of five different watercontents. The experimental results show that shear strength of both CCLs and CCLs/base interfacedecreases with the increase in the water content of CCLs and base soil. In addition, the considerateconcentration of NaCl in leachate has no deteriorating effect on the shear strength of liners.Triaxial shear tests were also conducted on clay liner specimens to obtain total and effective shearstrength under a fast compression. The shear strength parameters with total stress are φ=18. 5°and c=30 kPa for clay-bentonite, and φ=48. 5° and c=90 kPa for sand-bentonite and those witheffective stress are φ'= 27. 2° and c'=25 kPa for clay-bentonite, and φ'=35° and c'=100 kPa forsand-bentonite, respectively. These results indicate that the compacted clay-bentonite shows normalconsolidation, but that the compacted sand-bentonite exhibits over-consolidation.

Study on Swell Pressure Stress of Bentonite in Geosynthetic Clay Liners

The geosynthetic clay liner （GCL） is a kind of waterproofing material used widely in engineering. The waterproof mechanism is understood in terms of bentonite particles becoming water-obstruct colloid layers after they sorb water and swell. The swell pressure stress, however, has not been determined directly till now. In our experiment, swell pressure stress of the GCL under saturated water-sorbing condition was measured directly using a custom-made instrument. The results show that （1） the instrument designed by the authors performs satisfactorily and the test results are reproducible; and （2） the trend line of swell pressure stress variation with time can be divided into three segments. The first segment is characterized by a quick increase of the swell force in the first 0-50 hours. The swell pressure stress increases by 7.00×10^-4-1.00×10^-3 MPa/h. The second segment shows a slow increase of the swell pressure stress from the 50th to 1730th hour. The swell force increases by 7.54×10^-6-2.02×10^-5 MPa/h. The third segment is characterized by a little variation in swell pressure stress after 1730 hours. In this segment, the average value of the swell pressure stress measurements is 0.0719 MPa and the maximum value is 0.0729 MPa. It is suggested that the swell pressure stress is mainly raised by water entering pores among montmorillonite particles and interstitial layers in individual montmorillonite crystals, leading to an increase of volume.

Hydration swelling characteristics of needle-punched geosynthetic clay liners

A series of confined swell tests were conducted on a needle-punched geosynthetic clay liner (GCL) with tap water as the hydration medium. The effects of the static confining stress on the swelling characteristics of GCLs and the hydration time under different confining stresses were explored. Increasing the static confining stress led to: shorter hydration time; smaller final GCL height; less final GCL bulk void ratio; smaller final bentonite moisture content. The confined swell pressure determined for the tested GCL was 82.2 kPa, and the relationships between confining stress, final bulk void ratio (or final GCL height, final bentonite moisture content) were attained through the analyses of the confined swell test results in this study.

Numerical investigation of the effect of geosynthetic clay liner chemical incompatibility on flow and contaminant transport through a defective composite liner

A composite liner consisting of a geomembrane(GMB)and a geosynthetic clay liner(GCL)can be compromised by inorganic contaminants because of a defective GMB.When the composite liner with defective GMB is exposed to aggressive leachate conditions,the neglect of the chemical incompatibility of the GCL can potentially result in an underestimation of the leakage rate and flux through the composite liner.This paper proposed a numerical investigation on the effect of chemical incompatibility of GCL on the barrier performance of the composite liner with hole defect.Four cases with leachate solutions having varied cation valencies and ionic strengths were analyzed,in which the hydraulic conductivity of GCL was concentrationdependent.Both the effect of the chemical incompatibility of GCL and the mechanisms were analyzed.The incompatibility of GCL resulted in significant increases in leakage rate and flux through the composite liner by factors of up to 4.9 and 5.0,respectively.The incompatibility-affected area in GCL is located within 0.1 m from the center of the hole in the GMB.The coupled increase in the hydraulic conductivity of GCL and pore water concentration impacts the flux and leakage in a short period of time.With GCL chemical incompatibility considered,advection may dominate the contaminant transport through GCL.

Feasibility of compacted attapulgite/diatomite amended clayey soils as gas barrier materials

Compacted clay liners are extensively used as barriers to control the upward diffusion of vapors of volatile or semi-volatile organic contaminants released from unsaturated contaminated soils at industrycontaminated sites.This study aimed to investigate the gas diffusion barrier performance of compacted clayey soils amended with three agents including attapulgite and diatomite individually,and attapulgite/diatomite mixture.The properties including water retention,volumetric shrinkage,gas diffusion,and unconfined compressive strength were evaluated through a series of laboratory tests of amended compacted clayey soils.The results demonstrate that the decrease in volume proportions of interaggregate pores leads to an increase in unconfined compressive strength(qu).Both hydrophilic groups and microstructures of attapulgite and diatomite result in an increase in water retention percent(Wt)of compacted clayey soil specimens after amendment regardless of the type of agent or initial water content(w0).Furthermore,the ratio of the gas diffusion coefficient(De)to the gas diffusion coefficient in the air(Da)was significantly reduced owing to a decrease in volume proportions of inter-aggregate pores,hydrophilic group,and microstructures of attapulgite and diatomite.Scanning electron microscope analyses revealed that rod-shaped attapulgite filled the inter-aggregate pores formed by clay particles,whereas the disc-shaped diatomite particles,characterized by micropores,failed to obstruct the interaggregate pores due to their larger particle size.Mercury intrusion porosimetry(MIP)analyses showed a reduction in pore volume in the inter-aggregate pores,leading to a reduction in the total pore volume for both the attapulgite and attapulgite/diatomite mixture amended clays,which is in accordance with the scanning electron microscope(SEM)results.The findings are pertinent to the practical application of compacted clay liners as gas barriers against the upward migration of volatile or semi-volatile organic contaminants at contaminated sites.

Hydraulic conductivity of GCLs in MSW landfills

The state of the art of the study on the hydraulic conductivity of GCLs is presented in terms of the influence of the effective stress,chemical interactions,freeze-thaw cycles and temperature gradients.The changes of void ratio caused by changes of effective stress have a direct linear effect on the hydraulic conductivity,regardless of the cation concentration or the thickness of the adsorbed layer.The hydraulic conductivity is related to the relative abundance of monovalent and divalent cation(RMD),and RMD has a great effect on the hydraulic conductivity in weak solution.The long-term susceptibility of GCLs to increased hydraulic conductivity as a response to repeated freeze-thaw cycling is minimal,which has been proved after 150 freeze-thaw cycles.The potential of desiccation cracking increases with the increasing temperature gradient and is related to the initial subsoil water content,the applied overburden stress,etc.