Geotechnical properties of cemented paste backfill from Cannington Mine, Australia

Abstract

Paste fill is the newest form of backfill material in the spectrum available to international mines and is made from full mill tailings. Tailings have an effective grain size of approximately 5 lm and are combined with a small portion of binder and water to make paste. It is deposited into the voids created by mining which are referred to as stopes. The empty voids are approximated as vertical rectangular prisms, with plan dimensions of 15-40 m and heights of 100 m or more. Backfilling of mined stopes provide an increased level of local and regional stability to the ore body, as well as providing a suitable and economic dump of mining related waste. Paste is a relatively new technology in the mining industry and a review of the physical properties and mechanical fill behaviour was considered pertinent.

Full scale experiments on the effectiveness of a drainage system for cemented paste backfill

“…In Australia and Canada, its application was not really successful until mid-1990. Since then, several successful paste plant operations have adopted CPB technology, providing development and innovations (Rankine and Sivakugan, 2007;Potvin et al, 2005).…”

Utilization of industrial waste products as pozzolanic material in cemented paste backfill of high sulphide mill tailings

“…the formation of AMD) and facilitates the release of metals contained in the mine waste or mill tailings. In recent years, cemented paste backfill (CPB) of potentially hazardous sulphide-rich mill tailings into underground mine openings has gained importance for the environmental management of such wastes [1][2][3][4]. Environmental problems associated with the storage of sulphide-rich wastes under atmospheric conditions (i.e.…”

Time-dependent failure criterion for cemented paste backfills

“…Except from the CIU test results presented in the present study, other CIU test results without pore pressure measurement have been carried out and reported in the literature (Lampron, 2000;Cayouette, 2003). Rankine and Sivakugan (2007) also reported some triaxial UU and CID test results on two types of CPB while some additional CID and CIU+u test results (drained or effective parameters) are also reported (le Roux et al, 2005). From all data collected, those including UCS values only can be used for predicting c u using Equations (3) and (5).…”