Slope Stability of Municipal Solid Waste Landfills under Seismic Loading

Design of municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills requires a considerable attention due to the undesirable environmental and socio-economical impact of a potential failure. Furthermore, recent research and engineering practice experience in developed countries characterized by high seismicity, like U.S.A and Japan, has shown that MSW landfills are vulnerable to the seismic threat. Despite the vivid interest worldwide on the seismic design of MSW landfills, there are certain topics that require more attention since current seismic codes seem rather incapable to cover fully the seismic design of MSW landfills, and other similar geo-structures. For instance, local site effects on ground shaking and slope stability of such geo-structures is either underestimated or even ignored. The current study aims to provide an insight into the parameters affecting the dynamic response of typical MSW landfills, like the selected geometry, the waste material’s properties and excitation’s characteristics, and furthermore to examine the basic seismic stability aspects. Therefore, two-dimensional finite element analyses were conducted, and the response (in terms of induced acceleration) was evaluated. Consequently, the two basic failure modes i.e. base sliding and slope instability, were examined utilizing simplified procedures (sliding block model) to assess the developed deformations.