Shear strength of landfill liner interface in the case of varying normal stress

Abstract

Landfills are sequentially filled by solid waste lifts, thus normal stress on the liner interface changes in different shear stages, which may affect selection of interface strength in landfill slope stability analysis. Shear tests were conducted at the liner interfaces of geomembrane/geotextile (GM/GT) and geomembrane/geocomposite/sand (GM/GC/Sand), and the normal stress changed in different shear stages. Values of friction angles on both the GM/GT and GM/GC/Sand interfaces obtained by direct and simple shear tests under increasing normal stress in the hardening, softening, and large-displacement stages were lower than those obtained by the traditional direct shear test. The reduction was greater for peak friction angles. Since the peak liner interface strength obtained by staged loading is lower than the peak interface strength by using the traditional shear test method, using the peak shear strength obtained from the traditional direct shear test for the base floor liner to conduct slope stability analysis may cause an un-conservative result. It is necessary to consider the effects of normal stress changes on the liner interface strength in landfill slope stability analysis.