Geo-electrical characterization of physical and mechanical properties of zinc tailing

Abstract

In the present study, an attempt is made to characterize the tailing material using the electrical resistivity method through a series of laboratory experiments. Tailing materials are a by-product of the metal extraction industry, which are usually disposed off in the form of slurry to the disposal area surrounded by tailing impoundment. Nowadays, a large amount of water is removed through the filtration process, and dry stacking of tailing is followed. Effect of various basic (physical) geotechnical properties on the electrical resistivity of compacted tailing material is investigated using fabricated soil resistivity box based on four-electrode method (ASTM G57–20). To establish the correlation between electrical resistivity and permeability, measurements were made using modified rigid wall falling head permeameter at different densities. Triaxial shear tests, i.e., consolidated undrained (CU) test and consolidated drained (CD) tests were conducted on zinc tailings specimens to study the evolution of electrical resistivity with stress-strain and effective shear strength parameters (c’ and ϕ’) using customized triaxial cell. The present study can be useful for the estimation of in-situ soil properties using electrical resistivity measurement, which will help to understand the engineering properties of the compacted tailings and thus prevent failure of tailing dams.