Milke, M.W., Civil and Natural Resources Eng., U. Canterbury, mark.milke@canterbury.ac.nz
Abstract
Landfill research extends to investigations related to teaching about landfills. For many years now, I have taught landfill design as an elective course to 4 th
year undergraduate students. In the past eight years, I have also frequently taught (non-structural) civil engineering design as a required course to our 3 rd
year undergraduate students. For the 3 rd
year students, we typically design new housing estates, or roadway/stormwater projects; however, the course prepares them well for the 4 th
year landfill design course. My conclusion is that landfill design makes a superb topic for teaching all civil/environmental 1 engineers the basics of design.
There are numerous books on engineering design (e.g., Dym and Brown, 2012). Many universities will have common 1 st year design courses for all engineers. I have found both the books and 1 st
year courses particularly poorly suited for civil engineering design. They both tend to be centrally developed for mechanical engineers, with some significant overlap as far electrical and chemical engineering design, but with only a faint echo of relevance to nonstructural civil engineers. I believe the reasons for this are (1) that preliminary and conceptual design are more separated from detailed design for civil engineers, and (2) that a central aspect in civil engineering design is the importance of the specific site conditions, which is not a significant issue for other engineering disciplines. Particularly for conceptual and preliminary design, civil engineering design is more like architecture design than design for other engineers.
It is not easy to find a good project to teach key civil engineering design principles. Key criteria in choosing a design project are that the design project should: a.
Be multi-disciplinary b.
Be a non-linear design process of concept and refinement c.
Not be a project involving advanced analysis or new theory d.
Allow students to develop design intuition e.
Give students job-ready skills
Landfill design is excellent in all of these ways. a.
Multi-disciplinary: students need to understand biodegradation, environmental chemistry, hydrological, surveying, and geotechnical concepts. In addition, these need to be considered jointly in design— cover design impacts on hydrology and degradation. b.
Non-linear design: students need to refine their design and look at compromises, e.g., lift heights are chosen, then settlement estimated, and then lift heights adjusted, then …
1 For the rest of the paper, I refer only to civil engineers. To the extent that environmental engineering education overlaps with civil engineering education, these comments should prove relevant.

c.
No advanced analysis: some new concepts related to biodegradation are needed, but other concepts should be covered in other courses, and a focus on conceptual/preliminary design avoids the need for detailed analysis-rich calculations. d.
Develop intuition: e.g., consideration of intermediate cover develops spatial visualisation skills; the size of design components facilitate checks on reasonableness (e.g., leachate storage ponds of 20 hectares!) e.
Job-ready skills: 4 th
year undergraduates can reach a valuable level for employers, which is unusual for civil engineering education. Because of the rapid advance in landfill design in the past 20 years, young graduates with landfill design skills can be a valuable addition to firms with a number of older engineers unfamiliar with new design concepts.
When I teach landfill design, I break it into five parts. Students conduct their designs in pairs, and submit work for comment (but not grades) on each part, allowing incorporation of comments into later parts of the design. The five parts I currently use are:
1. Landfill Siting: preliminary sizing and final use
2. Landfill Gas: volume calculations and use
3. Landfill Leachate: cover/liner design, leachate strategy, simple infiltration and leaching calcs.
4. Landfill Details: daily cell design, cover calcs., fill strategy, settlement, final contours, costing
5. Landfill Project Issues: good neighbour issues, monitoring, consultation, regulations.
Books with a landfill design focus exist (McBean et al., 1995; Qian, et al., 2002; Richardson,
2009), but they are developed for specialists with the emphasis on landfill technology rather than teaching of design skills directly. In addition, there are a number of lower level textbooks and book chapters with a landfill part (Milke and Mihelcic, 2014; Vesilind, Worrell, & Reinhart,
2002). Still, the recognition that landfill design can help in the education of design for all civil engineers is missing. I would encourage others to propose that their civil engineering degrees use landfill design more in their design courses.
References
Dym, C.L., & Brown, D.C., 2012, Engineering Design , 2 nd
Edn., Cambridge University Press.
McBean, E.A., Rovers, F.A., & Farquhar, G.J., 1995, Solid Waste Landfill Engineering and
Design , Prentice-Hall.
Milke, M.W., & Mihelcic, J.R., 2014, “Solid waste management”, in Environmental
Engineering: Fundamentals, Sustainability, and Design , 2 nd
Edn., Wiley.
Qian, X., Koerner, R.M., & Gray, D.H., 2002, Geotechnical Aspects of Landfill Design and
Construction, Prentice-Hall.
Richardson, C.P., 2009, Municipal Landfill Design Calculations , Richardson Environmental
Solutions and Design, ISBN: 978-0-692-00678-8.
Vesilind, P.A., Worrell, W.A., Reinhart, D.R., 2002, Solid Waste Engineering , Brooks/Cole.