Abstract
Nearly half of the tailings dams in China are in a state of high-security risks and overservice, and the safety of these tailings dams has always been a concern for relevant scholars. The seepage characteristics of tailings are one of the essential factors affecting the safety of tailings dam. Now, due to the improvement of mineral processing technology, there are many fine tailings dam; the study of the seepage characteristics of the tailings dam is no longer applicable. Fine-grained tailings form uneven deposition in these tailings dams, resulting in the permeability of tailings not conforming to the previous law. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the permeability of fine-grained tailings with uneven deposition. In this paper, the physical model of the simulated tailings dam is established to study the influence of the dry beach slope on the distribution and deposition law of fine tailings during discharge. The test results show that the average particle size of tailings decreases along the length of dry beach, showing the phenomenon of coarsening upstream and thinning downstream. Then, based on the data of fine tailings deposition, the variation characteristics of the permeability coefficient of layered tailings under stable and unstable seepage conditions are studied. The test results show that the variation process of tailings permeability coefficient can be divided into four stages: rapid compaction stage, slow compaction stage, failure stage, and stable stage. Under stable and unstable seepage conditions, the permeability coefficients of unstratified tailing sand are about 10% and 15% higher, respectively, than those in the initial state. The permeability coefficient of layered tailings formed by uneven settlement changes more obviously, which is about 12% and 20% higher than the initial state.
Highlights
With the development of the mining industry [1,2,3], tailings as the waste after ore smelting increased sharply [4,5,6]
After the experiment was completed according to the experimental steps, the tailing along the dry beach surface was divided into five sections with the unit of 1 m
Through the polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) tube, it is found that the fine tailings particles in the tube migrate with the flow of water to the downstream direction of seepage and the tailings are in the stage of rapid compaction
Summary
With the development of the mining industry [1,2,3], tailings as the waste after ore smelting increased sharply [4,5,6]. The structural strength of tailings is an essential factor that affects the deformation [26] It mainly includes the particle size, quantity, mass, volume distribution, and mechanical properties. The increase of rainwater in the dam body will cause the unsaturated tailings above the original diving line to gradually enter the saturated state or even the supersaturated state [32] They are resulting in the gradual decrease and disappearance of the capillary force generated by matric suction acting on the particles, reducing the strength of tailings [33]. The permeability coefficient varies with time and space and the influence of the soil structure change under unsteady seepage erosion on mechanical properties. This paper adopts a self-designed seepage measurement device to study this kind of situation in detail
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