Analysis of the Dynamic Stability of Tailing Dams: An Experimental Study on the Dynamic Characteristics of Tailing Silt

Abstract

With the improvement in tailing mining-grade requirements and in mineral processing technology, tailing materials tend to be fine-grained. Under the action of earthquakes, a tailing dam is prone to liquefaction, which endangers the safety and stability of the dam. To further explore the dynamic properties of tailing silt under cyclic stress, through a series of dynamic triaxial experiments, we investigated the growth of the hysteresis curve, the development of pore pressure, and the energy dissipation law of tailing silt. The experimental findings indicated that increasing the density of the sample significantly improves its liquefaction resistance and the pore pressure development curve can be fitted using the BiDoseResp function. At the same cyclic stress ratio, the sample’s anti-liquefaction strength did not rise monotonically with increasing confining pressure but changed variably at values near a specified low confining pressure; when the sample density rose under the same settings, the specific confining pressure reduced. We also further discussed the evolution law of the stress–strain curves of tailing silt. The results further explored the dynamic characteristics of tailing silt, which can provide some reference for the seismic design and reinforcement measures of many fine-grained tailing dams.

Numerical Simulation of Seepage Surface and Analysis of Phreatic Line Control from a Fine-Grained Tailings High Stacked Dam under Complicated Geography Conditions

“…Rong Gui et al [16] showed that the migration of fine-grained tailings was caused by internal erosion which increased the permeability and reduced the shear strength of the tailings. Fuqi Kang et al [17] showed the dynamic characteristics of tailing silt and investigated the growth of the hysteresis curve, the development of pore pressure, and the energy dissipation law of tailing silt. Xiuwei Chai et al [18] showed that the particle size distribution of tailing sand could affect its strength, and the larger the particle size was, the greater the shear strength would be.…”