Design and performance of a compacted clay barrier through a landfill

This paper presents the construction and performance details of a compacted London Clay barrier that was designed to prevent any leachate or methane penetrating a stretch of the cut and cover box section tunnel of the London Heathrow Express Rail Link. The barrier was constructed with London Clay that was spoil from concurrent bored tunnelling operations on adjacent sites. Laboratory investigations carried out on the compacted London Clay are presented in the paper. These indicated that it was possible to design the clay surround to function as a barrier protecting the structure from the ingress of the leachate. Field monitoring using magnetic extensometer gauge measurements indicate that the consequent ground movements are lower than that predicted by the laboratory tests.