Currently, river and lake sediments are contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), to varying degrees of severity. PCBs are persistent micropollutants in the environment and harmful to health. A research program "PCB-Axelera" is conducted to address this issue and explore solutions to eliminate or decrease the pollution. In France, all prefectural orders (30/10/2002 and 14/06/2000) and the Decree of 18/04/2002 considered contaminated sediments as waste and allow their landfilling in waste storage facility if their PCB concentrations are between 0.68 ppm and 50 ppm. The main objective of this study is to develop a methodology suitable for installation of non-hazardous waste landfill sites. Geomaterials in this storage will be used as a barrier for confinement of contaminated sediment. The study consists of three parts: 1. In the first part, hydro-chemical characterization of sediments contaminated with PCBs is presented. The sediment classification is performed. The mechanical behavior of the sediment is determined using oedometer tests. As for the hydro-mechanical behavior, it is studied using the filter press and the rigid wall permeameter (PPR). This characterization is essential to provide the best implementation of sediment in the storage center. 2. In the second part, the hydraulic performance (permeability) and mechanical (swelling) of various geomaterials in contact with a fluid extracted from the sediment and other synthetic fluids containing PCBs are being explored. The study of swelling of geomaterials is performed on a laboratory scale while studying its water performance was achieved on two centimetric and metric scales. The pilot scale study was conducted on a 1.2 m3 volume tank. The pilot test was equipped with an automatic rain system and an ultrasonic sensor to measure to measure the follow the settlements of the sediment. The permeability of sediments and geomaterials were measured using the pilot test under actual storage conditions . 3. In the third part, a 1D hydraulic model is developed to follow the waterfront in a sediment sample subjected to a hydraulic load representing a PPR experiment. The VER method is used. A water model of the sediment is proposed to reproduce the experimental results. The water retention curve of the sediment is calculated using Durner’s model (1994). The experimental results show that the degree of PCB contamination of the sediments does not affect the hydro-mechanical behavior and therefore the hydro-mechanical performance of the studied geomaterials studied. Numerical simulation results of the hydraulic behavior of sediment are consistent with the experimental results. The solution of landfilling the PCB contaminated sediment is possible since it assure the confinement of the pollution and eliminates the risk of environmental contamination.
