Investigating the Semi-Permeable Membrane Behavior of Geosynthetic Clay Liners by Means of a Novel Apparatus

The paper presents a recently developed rigid-wall diffusion cell and the experimental setup that allows the determination of the coefficient ω, which quantifies the degree of solute restriction in clays or GCLs that exhibit semi-permeable membrane behaviour. In addition, the apparatus allows the monitoring of the total vertical stress acting on the specimen during a chemico-osmotic diffusion test while keeping the vertical deformations at a negligible level (<1%). This improvement of the traditional testing approach allows for the determination of the chemical-osmotic efficiency coefficient, ω, and of the swelling coefficient ω¯, the main parameters that characterize the chemico-osmotic behaviour of clays and GCLs on the same specimen. The paper also reports on the results of some tests carried out on conventional and enhanced GCLs, with the main purpose of comparing the results obtained by means of the new testing apparatus with literature data. A first application of an advanced existing theoretical model for the description of chemical-osmotic phenomena to the results obtained is also illustrated.