Design Charts for Contaminant Transport through Slurry Trench Cutoff Walls

Abstract

Slurry trench cutoff walls with low-permeability backfill material, such as soil-bentonite and slag-cement-bentonite, are used widely for containment of subsurface pollution. In the design of slurry walls the potential service life for a given thickness or the wall thickness for a target service life are typically determined via analyses of one-dimensional contaminant transport. The difficulty of selecting appropriate inlet and outlet boundary conditions and the mathematical complexity of analytical solutions hinder engineers in undertaking a contaminant transport analysis–based design. Design charts for nondimensionalized effluent flux are presented by developing and using an analytical solution. The methodologies of using these charts in design are demonstrated.