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The dynamic characteristics of landfills under seismic loading and their stability strongly depend on the cyclic stress-strain characteristics of the waste. An accurate assessment of the dynamic characteristics of mechanically-biologically treated (MBT) waste is crucial to the construction and safe operation of landfills. Considering the effects of the confining pressure, strain amplitude, and loading frequency, 72 sets of consolidated undrained cyclic triaxial (CTX) tests were conducted on MBT waste. Our results showed that the dynamic stress amplitude of MBT waste increases with increasing strain amplitude and decreases with increasing number of cycles. Furthermore, the shear modulus of MBT waste increases with the increase in the confining pressure and decreases with the increase in the strain amplitude. By increasing the strain amplitude, the damping ratio of MBT waste increases. However, the shear modulus and damping ratio of MBT waste are less affected by the loading frequency. A modified Davidenkov model is presented, which describes the correlations among the normalized shear modulus of MBT waste, shear strain, and confining pressure. The fitting parameters are discussed, and the correlation between the normalized shear modulus and shear strain of MBT waste and that between the normalized shear modulus and shear strain of municipal solid waste were compared. The results of this study can be used as references for analyses of the dynamic stability of MBT landfills., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The majority of existing regression models for unbound granular materials (UGMs) consider only the effects of the number of loading cycles and stress levels on the permanent deformation characteristics and are thus unable to account for the complexity of plastic deformation accumulation behavior influenced by other factors, such as dry density, moisture content and gradation. In this study, research efforts were made to develop artificial-neural-network (ANN)-based prediction models for the permanent deformation of UGMs. A series of laboratory repeated load triaxial tests were conducted on UGM specimens with varying gradations to simulate realistic stress paths exerted by moving wheel loads and study permanent deformation characteristics. On the basis of the laboratory testing database, the ANN prediction models were established. Parametric sensitivity analyses were then performed to evaluate and rank the relative importance of each factor on permanent deformation behavior. The results indicated that the developed ANN prediction model is more accurate and reliable as compared to previously published regression models. The two major factors influencing the magnitude of accumulated plastic deformation of UGMs are the shear stress ratio (SSR) and the number of loading cycles, of which the calculated influence coefficients are 38% and 41%, respectively, while the degree of influence of gradation is twice that of the confining pressure.

Critical dynamic stress ( σ cri ) and accumulative plastic strain ( ε p ) are primary indicators regarding the dynamic stability of unbound granular materials (UGMs). This study aims to seek an effective method to evaluate the dynamic stability of UGMs used in railway subgrades. First, the dynamic characteristics of an UGM used in railway subgrade bed construction were investigated by performing a series of large-scale cyclic triaxial tests, with the results showing that ε p versus cycle number ( N ) curves can be categorized into stable, failure, and critical patterns. Grey relational analyses were then established, where the analyzed results demonstrated that the ε p - N curve pattern and final accumulative plastic strain ( ε s ) of the stable curves are strongly correlated with the moisture content ( w ), confining pressure ( σ 3 ), and dynamic deviator stress ( σ d ). The analyzed grey relational grades distributed in a narrow range of 0.72 to 0.81, indicating that w , σ 3 , and σ d have similar degrees of importance on determining the ε p - N curve patterns and the values of ε s of the UGM. Finally, a data processing method using a back-propagation (BP) neural network is introduced to analyze the test data, and an empirical approach is developed to evaluate the σ cri (considering the effects of σ 3 and w ) and ε s (considering the effects of σ 3 , w , and σ d ) of the UGM. The analyzed results illustrated that the developed method can effectively reflect the linear/non-linear relationships of σ cri and ε s with respect to σ 3 and/or σ d . The σ cri approximately increases linearly with increasing σ 3 , and a simple empirical formula is proposed for the σ cri . In addition, ε s and its variation rate increase non-linearly with increasing σ d but decrease non-linearly as σ 3 increases.

The dynamic characterization of municipal solid waste (MSW), especially in regions with high seismicity, is of considerable importance in the stability assessment of landfills. Additionally, findings indicated that the response of MSW under dynamic loadings is significantly affected by fibrous material. Therefore, a comprehensive strain-controlled cyclic triaxial testing program was performed on MSW samples retrieved from a landfill in the Kahrizak area, Tehran province. The tests were conducted on fresh MSW specimens (with a diameter of 100 mm) with different percentage of fibers in the consolidated undrained condition. The potential reinforcing capability of fibers and their impacts on changes in the MSW composition were investigated under variations of different factors including confining pressure, loading frequency, Poisson's ratio, and loading cycles. From the results of the study, increasing fiber content in specimens resulted in improved elastic behavior of MSW under dynamic loadings, irrespective of the test conditions, such that the normalized shear modulus reduction curves shifted to the right, while the damping ratio curves exhibited no specific trend. However, it is necessary to simultaneously consider the impact of fiber contents, confining stress and shear strain on the variation rates of normalized shear modulus reduction values. This trend is attributed to the greater values of stiffness from changing the composition when compared with the one generated by obtained reinforcement within the studied strain range. Given the lack of systematic evaluations on the effect of the fibrous waste materials on the dynamic response of MSW, the results of this study provide additional insight into the seismic analysis of landfills., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)