Floor Loading for Municipal Residential waste collection and disposal facility 1

[ajk1]

I would like to check the validity of the live load that is being used for design of the floor of a new municipal facility for dealing with residential waste. The residential garbage is brought into this facility and dumped on the floor and then pushed into bin below. The waste can be piled up to 18 feet high. The municipality has no data on the unit weight of the refuse. Anyone dealt with this? Anyone have a feel for what the unit density might be? (Please note that the municipality provided the wheel loads etc. for the humungus equipment that is used to move the garbage around within the facility, but that does not necessarily govern for all the structural elements).

 

[MotorCity]

Here's an idea if you can get your hands on the specs of the garbage trucks used (or similar)......

Density of garbage = (weight of fully loaded truck - weight of empty truck) / volume of truck

Garbage in = Garbage out!

 

[mike20793]

Try this:

[link des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/waste/swmb/css/.../vol-to-weight-conversion.doc]Link[/url]

That link doesn't work. Try the attachment instead.

http://files.engineering.com/getfil...fe82ddf1876&file=vol-to-weight-conversion.doc

 

[ajk1]

To Motor City - thanks, that is a very good idea. But I am not sure how I am going to find the weight of a loaded garbage truck unless I have a contact with someone who deals with that.

To Mike20793 - thanks for the link. It does provide helpful information and leads me to believe we have been in the right ballpark in our work to-date.

 

[TLHS]

http://www.infomine.com/library/publications/docs/Zekkos2006.pdf

 

[ajk1]

To TLHS - thanks for the link. But that is for landfill will lots of soil mixed in...which is not my case.

 

[ajk1]

Does anyone have unit weight to be used for residential municipal garbage where it is not in a land fill site? All the research papers I have seen to-date are with respect to garbage in land fill sites where I understand that the garbage is periodically covered with soil, which I expect will make it denser than when it is unloaded in a garbage transfer station. I have heard of dramatically different densities being used for the design live loads of garbage transfer stations. Someone somewhere must know the answer, but perhaps he or she is not on this forum. I wonder if there is another forum that I should try...

 

[jayrod12]

I would be using the landfill amount. The garbage is compacted in trucks usually so it's extremely dense.

 

[ajk1]

To Jayrod - Yes good point --I know it is compacted in the trucks as you note, and that is the approach that I am taking, but it would still be nice to know what the actual density is so that no one comes back on us and says we wasted our client's money because he can show that it is a lot less dense.

 

[jayrod12]

If you can't find the proof, then what makes you think they will. If your client is remotely educated you explain the information you've found and let them decide how you would like to proceed.

You've brought up that point before about not wasting a client's money, which although I agree with, I think you place significantly too much emphasis on that. Structure performance should be priority number two right behind life safety. Economics cannot sacrifice either of the first two priorities.

 

[mike20793]

Does this help? The numbers seem similar to the document I posted previously. I found both of them by searching for "weight of compacted municipal waste".

Link