Reasonable control of the leaching range is one of the critical indicators of the in-situ leaching uranium mining process. However, there is currently no mature control technology. To verify and improve the current control technology of the leaching range in the industry, this work proposes an injection control mode for a small flow around the well-site and establishes a hydrodynamic model of the leaching range under eight different pumping and injection conditions by using the groundwater modeling system (GMS). The model calculation, range prediction, comparative analysis, and on-site SO42− and S isotope verification tests were carried out. Results show that with the change of liquid injection ratio, the area ratios of fixed pumping injection ratio (total pumping flowrate is greater than 0.3% of the total injection flowrate) and model leaching range under four pumping injection equilibrium conditions were 99.10%, 99.99%, 98.30%, and 97.95%, respectively. The farthest migration distance ratios of the leaching solution were 99.37%, 100%, 98.02%, and 97.58%, respectively. It is considered that the operation mode with a fixed pumping injection ratio has no noticeable control effect on the leaching range; selecting a reasonable proportion to regulate the flowrate of injection wells at different positions can effectively reduce the area of the groundwater flow field and realize the effective control of the leaching range. The research results are conducive to saving a lot of evaporation pool construction, land acquisition, human and material resource investment, and environmental policy pressure.
This paper aims to quantitatively analyze the influence of natural groundwater flowing into the flow field of in situ leaching mining. The computational method was built to evaluate the effect of natural groundwater on the production efficiency of pumping wells for the in situ leaching of uranium, and the “flow ratio of groundwater” and related formulas were defined. C1 and C2 mining areas of an in situ leaching uranium mine in Inner Mongolia were taken as an example, and the effect on the “flow ratio of groundwater” when changing the flow quantity of injection wells and the position and length of the filter in the pumping and injection wells were compared. The results show that the variation in the “flow ratio of groundwater” of a whole mining area or a single pumping well in different production stages can be obtained by the neutral solution concentration value from the mining area’s numerical simulation. Regulating the position, length of the filter, and mode of fluid injection in an in situ leaching mine can control the quantity of natural groundwater flowing into the mining area and reduce the fluid exchange between the flow field of in situ leaching uranium mining and natural groundwater.
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