Enhanced Prediction of Landfill Gas Emissions Through Geosynthetic Systems. Landfill gas represents an opportunity for electricity generation and carbon abatement: it need not be managed solely for environmental, health or safety risk reasons. However, our ability to predict gas collection and fugitive emissions from landfills capped with geosynthetics liners, in consideration of the myriad of factors that control these processes, is imperfect. Building on recent advances in unsaturated soil mec ....Enhanced Prediction of Landfill Gas Emissions Through Geosynthetic Systems. Landfill gas represents an opportunity for electricity generation and carbon abatement: it need not be managed solely for environmental, health or safety risk reasons. However, our ability to predict gas collection and fugitive emissions from landfills capped with geosynthetics liners, in consideration of the myriad of factors that control these processes, is imperfect. Building on recent advances in unsaturated soil mechanics, this project aims to conduct cutting-edge experimental and theoretical research to develop an experimentally-validated theory of gas migration through geosynthetics systems that is expected to lead to major improvement in performance and provide integrated design tools which are much needed but not currently availableRead moreRead less
Improved predictions of greenhouse gas transfers in landfill composite liner covers containing geomembrane defects. The Australian Greenhouse Office indicated that methane accounted for 85 per cent of the waste sector's annual greenhouse emissions in 2008, and stressed the need to undertake a range of activities to reduce these emissions. Models and theories derived from this project will address specifically the above issue leading to enhanced economic benefits.
Landfill gas leakages in geosynthetic lining systems: closing missing gaps. This project aims to resolve the shortfall in the fundamental understanding of the coupling between gas flow and geosynthetic liner systems by developing practical and new modelling techniques. The project expects to underpin the development of an experimentally validated theory to predict gas leakage rates through geosynthetics composite liner systems. Expected outcomes of the project are the establishment of a new conc ....Landfill gas leakages in geosynthetic lining systems: closing missing gaps. This project aims to resolve the shortfall in the fundamental understanding of the coupling between gas flow and geosynthetic liner systems by developing practical and new modelling techniques. The project expects to underpin the development of an experimentally validated theory to predict gas leakage rates through geosynthetics composite liner systems. Expected outcomes of the project are the establishment of a new conceptual framework and improved integrated design tools for the mitigation of gas escape through geosynthetics liner systems. These outcomes are expected to benefit the waste industry by providing the necessary scientific advances to enable a better estimate of gas emissions from landfills.Read moreRead less
Linking microstructural evolutions across the scales of granular failure. This project expects to transform the understanding of granular materials and their behaviour by establishing explicit links between the macroscopic responses of the materials and their evolving microstructural properties. This should lead to revolutionary constitutive models for granular materials that possess true mechanisms of evolving grain-scale structures. The proliferation of these new models should allow developmen ....Linking microstructural evolutions across the scales of granular failure. This project expects to transform the understanding of granular materials and their behaviour by establishing explicit links between the macroscopic responses of the materials and their evolving microstructural properties. This should lead to revolutionary constitutive models for granular materials that possess true mechanisms of evolving grain-scale structures. The proliferation of these new models should allow development of reliable predictive computational tools for the modelling and assessment of field-scale failure involving granular materials, enhancing the capability to assess the integrity and stability of earth structures, and benefitting the Australian economy, environment and public safety.Read moreRead less
Proppant transport in non-Darcy fracture flow for reservoir integrity/yield. Hydro-fracking of a typical gas well in Australia consumes around 3000 tonnes of proppants to keep open the created fractures, costing over $1.5 million. This project investigates proppant transport behaviour in non-Darcy turbulent flow during fracking of underground reservoir rock by combining Hele-Shaw-cell experiments with Particle Image Velocimetry and conceptual/numeric modelling. The generating advanced proppant t ....Proppant transport in non-Darcy fracture flow for reservoir integrity/yield. Hydro-fracking of a typical gas well in Australia consumes around 3000 tonnes of proppants to keep open the created fractures, costing over $1.5 million. This project investigates proppant transport behaviour in non-Darcy turbulent flow during fracking of underground reservoir rock by combining Hele-Shaw-cell experiments with Particle Image Velocimetry and conceptual/numeric modelling. The generating advanced proppant transport knowledge is expected to be more accurate than laminar flow-based theories currently relied on. Expected outcomes include more efficient/safer proppant-assisted fracking strategies to reduce wasteful proppant disposition and inform industry/government management of fracking based on the reservoir geological features.Read moreRead less
Internal soil erosion: from grain-scale insights to large-scale predictions. This project aims to further the understanding of internal soil erosion across different spatial and temporal scales. Internal soil erosion is the most frequent cause of failures of water retaining structures. An approach combining advanced X-ray techniques with particle based methods will be developed to observe, analyse and link different material properties and external conditions governing the erosion process. This ....Internal soil erosion: from grain-scale insights to large-scale predictions. This project aims to further the understanding of internal soil erosion across different spatial and temporal scales. Internal soil erosion is the most frequent cause of failures of water retaining structures. An approach combining advanced X-ray techniques with particle based methods will be developed to observe, analyse and link different material properties and external conditions governing the erosion process. This will lead to better criteria for soil erosion and numerical tools for field scale failure analysis and risk assessments. The expected outcomes of this project include enhanced capability to assess the integrity and stability of earth structures and better design criteria against erosion.Read moreRead less
A kinematically and micromechanically enriched constitutive modelling framework for failure of geomaterials. Failure at large scale such as slopes, embankments, and underground mining is fatal in terms of human lives and property loss. This project aims to develop a new methodology to connect micro-mechanisms that trigger and govern failure with the behaviour at much larger scales. In particular it will allow building constitutive models directly from micro-scale mechanisms, while possessing the ....A kinematically and micromechanically enriched constitutive modelling framework for failure of geomaterials. Failure at large scale such as slopes, embankments, and underground mining is fatal in terms of human lives and property loss. This project aims to develop a new methodology to connect micro-mechanisms that trigger and govern failure with the behaviour at much larger scales. In particular it will allow building constitutive models directly from micro-scale mechanisms, while possessing the capability to span the spatial scales. It will also transform the understanding of material property scaling into a predictive tool for engineering analysis, helping to obtain more cost effective designs with greater confidence in safety.Read moreRead less
Liquefaction of silty soils: Micromechanics, modelling and prediction. The project aims to develop a numerical approach to understand liquefaction in silty soils. Liquefaction of silty soils in submarine landslides, mine tailings dam failures and cargo liquefaction in vessels carrying iron/nickel ores can cause property loss and be fatal. This project will bridge the behaviours across the scales and deliver constitutive models that possess grain scale mechanisms for better prediction of liquefac ....Liquefaction of silty soils: Micromechanics, modelling and prediction. The project aims to develop a numerical approach to understand liquefaction in silty soils. Liquefaction of silty soils in submarine landslides, mine tailings dam failures and cargo liquefaction in vessels carrying iron/nickel ores can cause property loss and be fatal. This project will bridge the behaviours across the scales and deliver constitutive models that possess grain scale mechanisms for better prediction of liquefaction induced failure at the large scales. The expected outcomes are liquefaction criteria for silty soils with different silt contents and numerical tools to predict the onset of liquefaction and flow of liquefied soils.Read moreRead less