Effect of apparent cohesion on translational failure analyses of landfills

The scope of this paper is to develop a new analysis method introducing the effect of apparent cohesion of the waste and/or liner materials on the translational failure of landfills. The apparent cohesion of the liner materials seriously affects the factor of safety (FS), especially for a liner interface with a low friction angle and high apparent cohesion. Obtaining accurate and reliable apparent cohesion for various liner materials becomes an important approach for translational failure analysis. The relationship between B and FSave for c > 0 is different with that for c = 0. Using an equivalent friction angle to represent the apparent cohesion of the liner materials may lead to an unsafe result. Also, a waste filling sequence, to keep the FS above a stipulated value during the landfilling process, can be generated. The values of FSV/FSave varies between 1.9 and 2.1 and are concentrated around 2.0 when FS(ave)greater than or equal to0.95. The approximate solutions of FS with adequate accuracy can be obtained by assuming FSV=2.0(.)FS when FSgreater than or equal to0.95.