Field Investigation of Evaporation from Freshwater Tailings
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 126, Issue 6
Abstract
Safe and economical storage of tailings is now a major consideration in the operation of many mining operations. Tailings in slurried form, particularly if they have a significant clay content, can take a very long time to consolidate under the action of self-weight consolidation alone. However, if the operation is located in an area of high potential evaporation, this can be used to accelerate the rate of tailings densification. This paper presents a study of the evaporation behavior of a clayey tailings slurry deposited into an evaporation pond in the southwest of Western Australia. Over a six-month period, the rate of evaporation from the tailings surface was monitored using the Bowen Ratio method and the microlysimeter method. This was compared with the evaporation from a Class A pan located nearby. The tailings underwent very significant cracking as drying proceeded, and it was found that these cracks had a significant influence on the overall rate of evaporation once the top surface of the deposit started to desaturate. A large strain consolidation model was used to model the behavior, and the algorithm used in this model to include the effects of evaporation is shown to provide a reasonable prediction of the observed evaporation behavior.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 126 • Issue 6 • June 2000
Pages: 556 - 567
History
Received: Apr 23, 1999
Published online: Jun 1, 2000
Published in print: Jun 2000
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