Two tension failures occurred during the construction of the protection and leachate drainage layers for a geomembrane landfill liner on a slope of 24° to the horizontal. The paper describes and analyses the design and shows that the failures occurred largely because the sequence of construction was altered without due consideration of the consequences. The designers also appeared unaware that there is a difference between the nominal strength of a structural element and its actual in-service strength. This misconception also played a major part in the failures.
Mitchell, J.K., Seed, R.B., and Chang, M. (1993) The Kettleman Hills landfill failure: A retrospective view of the failure investigations and lessons learned. In Proc. 3rd International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering, St. Louis, MO, USA, Vol. 2, pp. 1379— 1392.
8.
Palmeira, E.M., Lima, N.R. & Mello, L.G.R. (2002) Interaction between soils and geosynthetic layers in large-scale ramp tests. Geosynthetics International, 9, 149—187.
9.
Palmeira, E.M. & Viana, H.N.L. (2003) Effectiveness of geogrids as inclusions in cover soils of slopes of waste disposal areas. Geotextiles and Geomembranes , 21, 317—337.
10.
Richardson, G.N. & Koerner, R.M. (1987) Geosynthetic Design Guidance for Hazardous Waste Landfill Cells and Surface Impoundments, EPA-600/2-87-097. US EPA, Hazardous Waste Engineering Research Laboratory, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
11.
Sabs 0221-88 (1988) Code of Practice for the Testing of Geotextiles. South African Bureau of Standards, Pretoria, South Africa.
