Some Laboratory Scale Tests on An Australian Coal Tailings Sample

Abstract

As a country with rich mineral resources, Australia, is amongst the top five world's leading exporter of minerals. As such, coal tailings, one of the by-products of mineral exploration, pose ample challenge for its handling, management and disposal in tailings dams. These usually are encountered with high moisture content. In order to avert the risk of fluidization and associated failures of coal tailing dams, dewatering is necessary to be applied for reducing their water content. With this in mind, some laboratory experiments based on a local coal tailings sample has been presented in this manuscript. The coal tailing sample has been characterized by conducting the liquid limit test, plastic limit test and shrinkage limit test. Sieve analysis and hydrometer test have been conducted to establish the gradational property of the material. Modified compaction test and one-dimension consolidation test have been performed and the load-deformation response of the material is described in detail. Also, the vane shear test has been conducted to figure out the relationship between gravimetric moisture content and shear strength. Furthermore, hydraulic and volume change response of the sample subjected to changing moisture content have been studied through soil-water retention curve (SWRC) and soil shrinkage characteristic curve (SSCC).