Initial insights into the effect of geomembrane welding parameters on cold-climate welding

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Geomembranes, which are essentially large sheets of plastic, offer superior environmental protection to various contaminants contained in municipal solid waste landfills, hazardous waste landfills, and fluids oil/mineral extraction facilities including hydrocarbon, heavy metals, and cyanide contaminated waters, highly acidic waters, fracking fluids, etc. Geomembranes are typically installed by welding sheets of material together. Current installation guidelines are focussed on ensuring weld integrity at the time of installation. However the process of performing the weld also affects the geomembrane adjacent to the weld (a region called the heat affected zone or HAZ) which is subjected to short term high temperature and some stress during welding. On even a relatively small facility of 250m x 110m, the length of heat affected zone exceeds 4000 m. Failures in this zone adjacent to the weld have been observed weeks to a few months after installation; especially when the installation was conducted in very cold ambient conditions common in the Canadian winter. This project seeks to understand how cold ambient conditions at the time of welding and different welding parameters interact to affect the performance of the geomembrane and its susceptibility to premature failure. Queen's University has the unique expertise and equipment necessary for quantifying these effects and provide a framework for improve installation practice and in so doing provide more effective and reliable groundwater and surface water protection. Collaboration with leading Canadian geomembrane installation company will ensure experimental conditions reflect common field conditions and that the research findings are applied to industry applications. The research will involve training of two HQP.