Long term performance of bituminous and modern geomembrane liners with high interface shear strength

土工合成屏障广泛应用于土工环境工程，如垃圾填埋场和许多采矿应用。这些大型填充物/池塘（有时为100米平方米）现在需要在土工合成衬垫上建造。衬垫系统通常包括低渗透性土层上的聚合物土工膜，作为防止污染物迁移到周围环境的屏障。******除了由于安装不当或突然施加外力造成的灾难性故障外，这些土工膜通常在短期内是坚固的。然而，土工膜由于其缓慢的老化过程（即降解）而长期失效，导致污染物迁移到环境和/或边坡衬砌的不稳定。这两种情况都将涉及后续的重大补救费用。为了确保在矿物开采和废物处理过程中保护我们的环境，土工膜具有足够和已知的使用寿命至关重要。今天，许多创新的土工膜被用于设计垃圾填埋场和采矿设施，很少甚至没有对其耐久性进行支持研究。因此，有战略需要了解和评估这些土工膜的寿命，以尽量减少在密封设施的设计寿命期间（几十年到几个世纪）与环境的负面相互作用。******拟议的研究将利用女王大学独特的屏障系统评估基础设施，进行最新的研究，检查具有高界面剪切性能的现代聚乙烯和沥青土工膜的化学耐久性。本文将首次对这些土工膜在剪切作用下的性能进行进一步研究，探讨老化对填埋场和矿山设施边坡衬垫界面抗剪强度的影响。在此基础上，利用试验数据进行数值模拟，首次探讨土工膜老化对边坡衬砌土工稳定性的影响。******本研究旨在建立一个基于证据的严格理解市场上土工膜的性能，并将在未来几十年/几个世纪内保护我们的环境。这种理解将有利于加拿大土工合成社区（顾问，制造商，监管机构）实现更好的屏障系统设计，并通过保护我们的地表水和地下水免受污染，同时建立最有效地利用资源和税收，从而使公众受益。该项目将培养3名博士、2名硕士和4名本科生，他们将掌握进行土工合成衬垫性能评估的独特实验技能和前沿分析技术，并将其独特的知识和技能带到工业界和学术界。

Geosynthetic barriers are widely used in geoenvironmental projects such as landfills and many mining applications. These mega fills/ponds (sometimes >10M m2) are now required to be constructed on geosynthetic liners. The liner systems often comprise a polymeric geomembrane over a low permeability soil layer to function as a barrier against contaminant migration into the surrounding environment. ******Aside from catastrophic failures due to poor installation or sudden application of external forces, these geomembranes are typically robust in the short term. However, geomembranes can fail in long term due to their slow aging process (i.e. degradation) resulting in contaminant migration to the environment and/or the instability of the side slope liner. Either would involve major subsequent remediation costs. To ensure that our environment is protected during mineral extraction and waste disposal operations, it is critical that geomembranes have an adequate and known service life. Today, many innovative geomembranes are offered for designing landfills and mining facilities with little to no supporting research on their durability. Thus, there is a strategic need to understand and evaluate the longevity of these geomembranes to minimize negative interactions with the environment during the design life of the containment facility (several decades to centuries).******The proposed research will capitalize on the unique barrier system evaluation infrastructure available at Queen's to conduct novel state of the art research examining the chemical durability of modern polyethylene and bituminous geomembranes with high interface shear properties. For the first time, the performance of these geomembranes will be further examined under shear to investigate the effect of aging on the interface shear strength of the liner on the side slopes of landfill and mining facilities. Furthermore, numerical modeling will be used with the data collected during the experimental program to examine, for the first time, the effect of aging of the geomembrane on the geotechnical stability of the side slope liners.******This research aims to establish an evidence based rigorous understanding of the performance of geomembranes offered today in the market and will be relied on to protect our environment for the coming decades/centuries. This understanding will benefit the Canadian geosynthetic community (consultants, manufacturers, regulators) in achieving better design for barrier systems, and the public by protecting our surface and ground waters against contamination while establishing the most efficient use of resources and tax dollars. This program will train 3 PhD, 2 MSc, and 4 undergraduate students that will involve skills in conducting unique experiments and leading-edge analysis techniques in performance evaluation of geosynthetic liners, who will carry their unique knowledge and skills to industry and academia.