ABSTRACT
Heat concentration and distribution in a landfill are likely to reflect the influence of several factors absent from other porous media systems. These include a lack of effective insulation from the outside environment, making the landfill subject to heat inflows from and heat losses to the atmosphere. Other factors include heat conduction and advection related to gas and liquid flows through the pore structure; heat diffusion through the waste-soil-water-gas mixture; and internal heat generation from microbial metabolic activity such as waste decomposition (an exothermic process). Heat content of the system is additionally influenced by its moisture content, temporal and spatial variation of heat input with climatic season and heat properties of the types of solid materials present.
