title: Long-term moisture measurements in large-scale bioreactor cells using TDR and neutron probes.
abstract: This paper investigates the measurement of moisture content in municipal solid waste using two different indirect techniques: neutron scattering and time-domain reflectometry (TDR). Therefore, six laboratory-scale landfill bioreactors were instrumented with both neutron and TDR probes; in addition to that a gravimetric moisture balance was established for each cell. Different leachate recirculation modes were applied to perform different wetting conditions. In a first step, both probes were calibrated based on the water balance from three cells presenting homogeneous water distributions and sufficient temporal moisture variations. The calibration functions were then used for temporal and spatial moisture monitoring of all six cells. The results show that both methods are sensitive to moisture variations and provide interesting information on the complexity of vertical flows within the municipal solid waste. Nevertheless, it appears that neutron scattering offers better accuracy at the laboratory scale.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Etude des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement, Université de Grenoble, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 09, France. matthias.staub@grenoble-inp.fr
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Staub
authors.forename: J-P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Gourc
authors.forename: J-P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Laurent
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kintzuger
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Oxarango
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Benbelkacem
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bayard
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Morra
mesh_terms: D019149:Bioreactors; D002138:Calibration; D009502:Neutrons; D014867:Water
chemical_list: D014867:Water