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.

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.

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.