Hideki Yoshida*, Nobutoshi Tanaka**, Hitoshi Hozumi*

*Faculty of Engineering, Muroran Institute of Technology
(27-1, Mizumoto-cho, Muroran, Hokkaido 050 Japan)
**Faculty of Engineering Hokkaido University

Abstract

Temperature in a municipal solid waste landfill layer can rise up to 60*C[Celsius degeree] and above, because of biodegradation and other processes. This has significant effects on biological, chemical and physical phenomena in the layer, which has been elucidated by various fields and theoretical studies. Effective thermal conductivity (ke) is an essential property in order to estimate and control temperature distribution of landfill layers. A laboratory-scale experimental apparatus was set up for measuring ke of a solid waste packed bed. Values of ke of 2 kinds of ashes, crushed incombustible refuse and artificial refuse were measured. Consequently, values of ke were in the range of 0.04 to 1.1 J/ (m. s. *C[Celsius degeree]), and varied with the type of refuse, apparent density and water content of the packed beds. Furthermore, a predicting method for ke was proposed. It was estimated as geometric means of 2 predicted values by series and parallel models which are simple and typical models for calculation of ke of porous materials. The predicted values of ke agreed with the observed values within +-[plus minus]50% errors.

Key words: solid waste packed bed, effective thermal conductivity, heat transfer, temperature, prediction