Use of Soil From Ghazipur Landfill for Road Embankment Construction

Abstract

The Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is a heterogeneous material which cannot be used in road embankments as such. It has large size plastics, clothes and even boulder size C&D waste. The material is much different than soil and use of MSW in embankments may result in long term settlements and ultimately lead to failure of road built over it. MSW needs to be segregated/separated for use in embankment construction. Physical and chemical characteristics of municipal solid waste are very important to know the presence of different toxic metals and their possibility of polluting the underground water resources. MSW was tested for geotechnical characteristics viz. grain size analysis, compaction characteristics, shear strength, consolidation and permeability characteristics. The results of direct shear tests (cohesion and angle of friction) were used for slope stability analysis and the results of consolidation were used for settlement analysis. The design of embankments with MSW is similar to that of earthen embankments. The MSW embankment is designed as a composite structure with MSW in the core and a cover of good earth on either side. Finite Element Method is used for solving problems of deformation and stability in twodimensional geometry. Various softwares based on finite element method have been designed specifically for consolidation, stability and deformation analysis. Different models were made using the finite element modelling software to investigate the feasibility of use of Municipal Solid Waste in road embankments. Settlement and stability analysis was carried out to determine the strength parameters. Once the feasibility is determined, test tracks can be prepared to test the application of the material in road embankments construction.