The principles of capillary barriers are well known from many
laboratory studies. A limited number of large-scale applications are
known, in particular for the sealing of past pollution and demolition
waste. This study investigates the suitability of a capillary barrier
for the sealing of a municipal landfill.
Laboratory tests have shown the fundamental applicability of the
selected materials. The sealing effect of the material combination as
a capillary barrier was examined in a large scale tipping trough under
step increasing hydraulic load and two differential slopes. The
materials showed drain capacities suitable for an effective capillary
barrier.
For a long-term study under natural weather conditions, two
experimental fields with integrated large scale lysimeters and slopes
of 10 % and 26 % have been constructed on site at the landfill.
The lysimeter data of three subsequent years were used for the
analysis. After the growth of a closed cover of vegetation the surface
runoff was negligible. Only in wet years it exceeded 2 % of the annual
precipitation. In 2000 and 2001 the evapotranspiration was between
55 % and 65 %. In the very wet year 2002, however, it was
significantly below 50 %. The predominant part of the lysimeter
runoff was drained by the capillary layer. Only heavy precipitation
caused a relevant drain into the capillary block. Except for the very
wet year 2002 the effectiveness of the whole system exceeded 95 % of
the annual precipitation. As expected the efficiency of the steeper
lysimeter clearly surpassed 95 %.
In order to verify the possibility to reduce the effort for the
experimental determination of the efficacy of the capillary barrier by
numerical simulations, it was tried to calculate the measured results
by numerical models for the water balance layer and the capillary
barrier. The results show that in principle a realistic prediction is
possible. However, a reliable prediction of the measured results can
only be achieved by using parameters that were calculated by inverse
modeling for the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity. Because of the
high sensitivity of the model, calculations with parameters predicted
by standard methods did not lead to plausible results, but
overestimated the effectiveness of the capillary barrier. Therefore it
is not advised to substitute large scale tipping experiments by
numerical modeling.
Although the capillary barrier is not gas proof, the closed water
coating above the boundary to the capillary block largely restricts
the movement of gas. Laboratory experiments resulted in very low
permeability for gas through an aqueous capillary barrier.
Measurements at the experimental fields showed that the capillary
barrier significantly reduces the emission of gas at the surface
compared to the non-sealed landfill surface. However, under adverse
air pressure conditions low gas emissions are still measurable.
Considering the present investigations, the capillary barrier is a
competitive and secure alternative especially for the fracture-prone
clay liner. For demolition waste it can be used as single sealing.
For municipal waste, as in the underlying landfill of Bayreuth, the
combination with an additional sealing element, e. g. a synthetic
liner is recommended.