Effect of Grain Crushing on the Hydraulic Conductivity of Tailings Sand
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 147, Issue 12
Abstract
Tailing dams are constructed to impound the byproducts of mining operations and are often built using the coarser fraction of the tailings resulting from gravity separation processes. The high stresses anticipated at the bottom of tall tailings dams can lead to grain crushing, resulting in a reduction in the hydraulic conductivity and, ultimately, long-term performance issues if the water drains at a slower rate than required. Therefore, in order to accurately evaluate the margin of safety in designing tall tailings dams, understanding the evolution of the hydromechanical behavior of the tailings is important. This paper presents the results from a series of laboratory-scale high-stress compression tests combined with hydraulic conductivity measurements using a specially designed oedometer cell. The experimental results were subsequently interpreted by an enhanced continuum breakage mechanics model. The grain-size distributions predicted by the continuum breakage model were further combined with six commonly used hydraulic models to predict the reduction of hydraulic conductivity of tailings sand subjected to grain crushing. The results suggest that a stress increase from 5 to 40 MPa can cause an increase in fines content from 11% to 17%, respectively, and a corresponding reduction in hydraulic conductivity of up to one order of magnitude for the tested materials. The paper highlights that the breakage mechanics theory combined with proper hydraulic conductivity models can offer reliable predictions of the evolution of the hydromechanical behavior of tailings sands subjected to high stresses.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
Yida Zhang wishes to thank Stantec Inc. for providing the testing materials and the financial support for this study. The start-up fund provided by the University of Colorado Boulder is also gratefully acknowledged. The authors also thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, which provided great improvements to this paper.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 12 • December 2021
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 29, 2020
Accepted: Jul 7, 2021
Published online: Sep 21, 2021
Published in print: Dec 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Feb 21, 2022
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Cited by
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