Empirical Model for Shear Wave Velocity of Municipal Solid Waste In Situ

Statistical analysis of 146 in situ shear wave velocity (VS) profiles from 37 municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill sites worldwide yields a simple linear relationship between MSW VS and depth up to a depth of 30 m. This empirical linear relationship holds for both U.S. landfills and the worldwide data set. The linear model provides a significantly better fit to the data than either the exponential or power law models for both data sets. At depths greater than 30 m, the observed linear relationship no longer holds. However, VS data at depths greater than 30 m are sparse and dominated by only a few landfills. Additional investigation of VS at depths greater than 30 m is required to establish a consistent trend in this depth range. The statistically derived empirical VS profile developed in this paper is not a substitute for site-specific measurements, but may be useful for preliminary analysis and assessing the reasonableness of measured VS values.