Soil Degradation-Consolidation Theory and Its Applications

This book focuses on skeleton-degradable soils, including three typical degradation processes of soil skeletons: soil particle breakage, chemical degradation, and biochemical degradation. Corresponding degradation models and constitutive models are proposed, and a degradation–consolidation theory is established. The theory overcomes the limitations of classical soil mechanics, such as the constant solid-phase mass assumption, and addresses the neglect of the effects of consolidation on degradation in environmental engineering. The theory provides key theoretical foundations and new analytical perspectives for understanding phenomena such as the degradation–consolidation processes in municipal solid waste landfills, the decomposition and exploitation of natural gas hydrates, and the behavior evolution of geomaterials under the influence of particle breakage.

This book offers detailed theoretical insights, rich experimental data, and advanced numerical and physical simulation methods, particularly in environmental hazards prevention and control in municipal solid waste landfills. Hence, it is suitable for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students engaged in soil constitutive relations, multi-field coupling problems, and related fields.

Introduction.- Degradation of the soil skeleton.- Constitutive models for skeleton-degradable soils.- Liquid-gas seepage constitutive models for skeleton-degradable soils.- Soil degradation-consolidation models.- Production and drainage of leachate and landfill gas.- Landfill deformation and instability.- Sustainable landfilling of municipal solid waste.

Born in 1962 in Wenling, Zhejiang Province, Yunmin Chen is a professor at Zhejiang University and an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is the Director of the Center for Hypergravity Experiment and Interdisciplinary Research and the Director of the Institute of Geotechnical Engineering at Zhejiang University. He has previously served as the Chief Scientist for the National Basic Research Program Project “Basic Research on Environmental Disasters Incubation and Sustainable Prevention and Control in Municipal Solid Waste Landfills,” and is currently the Chief Scientist for the National Major Science and Technology Infrastructure Project “Centrifugal Hypergravity and Interdisciplinary Experiment Facility (CHIEF).” He is also the Principal Investigator of the NSFC Basic Science Center Program “Multiphase Evolution in Hypergravity.”

Professor Yunmin Chen is an expert in soil mechanics, geoenvironmental engineering, and centrifugal hypergravity science. He has published over 600 academic papers. He was granted 3 National Science and Technology Progress Awards, 9 Provincial and Ministerial Science and Technology Progress Awards. He was the recipient of the Yisheng Mao Science and Technology Award — a grand prize in soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering in China, the Telford Premium Prize from the ICE, and the Outstanding Paper Award from the ASCE. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Transportation Geotechnics, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Zhejiang University-Science A, and an editorial board member of 7 international journals.