A rational development of the dynamic strength parameters of a municipal solid waste material has been very limited because of the highly heterogeneous nature of refuse material and the difficulties in sampling and testing representative samples in the laboratory. Reliable data on the strain development dynamic properties of solid waste is essential to analyze the seismic response of solid waste landfills. In recent years several investigators have published strain dependent shear modulus reduction and damping relationships. However no two curves match with each other. The approaches used to develop these curves are downhole shear wave velocity testing, back analysis of field performance and laboratory testing of samples of solid waste. This paper examines the differences to help understand the factors which influence the dynamic strength characteristics of solid waste. The shear modulus versus shear strain curves were replotted as tau/G_max, versus shear strain characteristics in more details. This showed an unusually resistant behavior of solid waste to shear strength degradation from small strain over a relatively wide range of strains. This paper attempts to explain this behavior and point out the other factors which should be considered when choosing a sheer modulus versus shear strain curve for analysis.

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