ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on material properties and behavior for caps, cutoff walls, and permeable reactive barriers (PRBs), with an emphasis on understanding the mechanisms and factors that affect their durability in full-scale systems. Information obtained from laboratory tests are analyzed in this context. The reader is referred to the preceding book in the containment series, Assessment of Barrier Containment Technologies (Rumer and Mitchell, 1995), as well as Daniel (1993), Gavaskar et al. (1998), LaGrega et al. (2000), Blowes et al. (2000), Naftz et al. (2002), and Reddi and Inyang (2000) for detailed information on the general characteristics of barrier materials mix design approaches and performance issues. In this chapter, the emphasis is on fundamental factors and laboratory and field observations that relate to the long-term performance of materials used in constructing various types of containment systems. The overall performance of these systems has been analyzed holistically using the systems approach in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 dealt with models of water and contaminant fate and transport through components of containment systems. It is herein recognized that material properties
play a significant role in overall system performance. This chapter is divided into three primary subsections, each of which addresses materials performance for a specific type of containment structure.
