Settlement Prediction for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills Using Power Creep Law

One of the most important factors that affect the post-closure operation of a landfill is the settlement of refuse and foundation material. Prediction of settlement of refuse is complex because of the mechanisms of settlement and the heterogeneity of the refuse. The settlement of a landfill can be estimated using a simplified method, the Power Creep Law. Based on the analysis of published data measured in the field from four landfills, a correlation is proposed between two parameters, reference compressibility and rate of compression, required to predict the refuse settlement using the Power Creep Law. The settlement-time relationships of waste landfills predicted using the proposed correlation show better agreement with the measured settlements than the settlements predicted using average values or some arbitrary combination of the parameters.