Professor Krishna Reddy received a $77,150 supplement grant to his National Science Foundation (NSF) project entitled “Modeling Coupled Dynamic Processes in Landfills: Holistic Long-Tern Performance Management to Improve Sustainability.” In September, Reddy was been awarded a three-year $280,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a model to transform dry-tomb landfills into efficient waste treatment systems. The award amount with this amendment totals $356,431 and ends August 31, 2018.
“This project will develop a new coupled mathematical tool to enable the design and operation of stable, effective and sustainable engineered landfills, thereby minimizing long-term risks to the surrounding environment and public,” said Reddy. “The tool will enable practitioners and regulators to predict the highly complex landfill stabilization period, and allow for the planning of beneficial reuse of landfill space, such as recreational facilities, by accurately accounting for a differential settlement and stabilization period.”
With controlled, predictable, rapid municipal solid waste decomposition and a reduced stabilization period non-degradable municipal solid waste may be mined and processed, reducing the amount of landfill mass encapsulated within a landfill; post-closure monitoring can be shortened and associated expenditures considerably reduced; and concerns about the long-term performance of geosynthetic liners and related environmental risks can be addressed.
This research involves multiple disciplines, including geoenvironmental engineering, sustainable engineering, biology, and computational mechanics.
Reddy is the director of CME’s Sustainable Engineering Research Laboratory (SERL) and the Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering Laboratory (GAGEL). Learn more about his research at Reddy research.