Mechanical and Thermal DEM analyses of baled MSW storage

Municipal solid waste is sometimes stored in baled form either before or after treatment. General design requirements for MSW landfills, such as slope stability and lining long-term integrity are still relevant for bale fills and need to be checked by calculation. However, the large size of the bales presents some difficult problems for traditional analytical and numerical modelling approaches, such as the pervasive presence of bale-bale contact discontinuities within the MSW mass. On the other hand, the discrete element method offers a rather natural framework in which to analyse bale fills. In this communication we exemplify that approach by presenting two separate analysis of a baled fill using the discrete element method. The first analysis is a thermal analysis in which the heat generated by biological evolution of the baled waste is taken into account to assess the thermal evolution of the baled waste storage as construction proceeds. The second is a mechanical analysis in which overall stability of the baled MSW storage is assessed.