Site Study of Fibrous Sedimentsin Sandviken, ÅngermanälvenRiver Estuary, Sweden

Sammanfattning: Pulp and paper industries in Sweden have since the end of the 19th century until late 70s been active in dumping wastewater into adjacent water bodies that have created fibrous sediments called fiberbank and fiber-rich sediment. Fiberbanks are large banks of predominantly organic material while fiber-rich sediment is fibrous sediment that has been mixed with bottom sediment. The fiberbanks comprise of high levels of processed wood fibres and contaminants such as heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). It also produces carbon dioxide and methane gas by microbial activity and leaves the sediment with exit holes called pockmarks. These sediments have been proven to cause environmental harm to the benthic biological environment around it, also causing it to become anoxic/hypoxic. Some of the POPs bioaccumulate which also affect humans through fishing. If the fiberbanks are disturbed through e.g. mass movement, toxic contaminants could be released into the aquatic environment. Fiberbanks need to be remediated and more research is needed to characterise it. In-situ capping is a remediation technique that is being tested at the laboratory scale for its application to fiberbanks. It involves placing a layer of clean material on top of the sediment, in order to stabilize it and to limit contaminant release.Because of their high organic content and low density, these sediments might behave differently than typical natural sediments. Therefore, laboratory experiments are necessary to understand their key properties. This thesis focuses on the Sandviken site, for which the bearing capacity of fiberbanks, their thickness, and the compression rate of fiber-rich sediments are studied. The bearing capacity is the capacity for a sediment to hold a weight, and in the case of in-situ capping it is an important parameter to study. The thickness was interpreted from physical data collected by a fluid mud penetrometer (FluMu), from the University of Bremen to assess the fiberbank volume. Fiber-rich sediment is examined to expand the knowledge on its physical properties by testing consolidation and potential gas production.Bearing capacity was tested by placing sediment in a tank and placing a cap on top of it. The site thicknesses were interpolated in ArcMap into a visual topography where the volume could be calculated. Fiber-rich sediment consolidation was tested by placing the sediment in columns with different capping thicknesses. By monitoring bubbles and pockmarks, gas production was confirmed.Results show that the tank sediment construction kept its shape without collapsing or failing at the edges. Sediment/cap interface was sharp, it means little to no mixing between the layers. This proves that Sandviken fiberbank has enough bearing capacity to hold up a cap and that it contains contaminants well. FluMu interpretation resulted in a fiberbank volume of 51885 m3. The fiberbank thickest layer was interpreted as being in front of the sulphate factory which is a credible result. The fiberbank volume is not conclusive since the FluMu has not measured complete thicknesses of the layers. This can be said since thicknesses have been measured at a minimum of 6 m and the thickest point interpreted was 1,11 m. The fiber-rich sediment consolidation showed that a cap that is very thick will cause most consolidation and more rapid dissipation of pore water. Bubbles and pockmarks were observed and confirm gas production.