Sample Rocks Tests and Slope Stability Analysis of a Mine Waste Dump

Abstract

The safety and stability of waste dump are vital influencing factors to the mine sustainability and mine employees. Based on a real mine project in a certain open-pit mine waste dump in Tibet, the in situ test on waste rocks from waste dump, including measurements of density, water content, rock size, and natural repose angle, was conducted. Afterwards, these sample waste rocks, of which grain size is less than 5 cm, were selected for indoor large-scale shear test under natural and saturated conditions. By using some engineering methods, the physical and mechanical parameters of waste rocks layer were then determined accordingly. MIDAS-GTS/NX has the advantage of pre-processing modeling. FLAC3D has good computational and analytical capabilities. The process of dump accumulation is simulated numerically. According to the calculation results of FLAC3D, the distribution of stress, displacement and plastic zone in the dump is obtained. FOS (factor of safety) for each analytical step in this model was then calculated through the strength reduction method. The limit equilibrium method is used for waste dump stability analysis considering three states: only applied gravity, applied gravity and rainfall, and applied gravity and underground water. The results from this analysis show that the waste dump is stable. The potential failure modes of waste dump mainly consist of the “combined sliding mode” which has circular sliding in upper side and broken line sliding that cuts through gravel-soil layer into heavily weathered layer in the bottom. This paper documents some of the procedures and approaches utilized for waste dump life-of-mine design analysis. It provides reference for further waste dump optimization.

Rainfall & Seismological Dump Slope Stability Analysis on Active Mine Waste Dump Slope with UAV

“…is approach improves accuracy, e ciency, and modeling time, ensuring accuracy and legitimacy [36,37]. ree geometries were extracted from the targeted waste dump slope.…”

Application of Numerical Simulation Methods in Solving Complex Mining Engineering Problems in Dingxi Mine, China

“…As an example, Zou et al [13] used a method coupling MIDAS and FLAC 3D to establish a 3D model of a waste dump; simulated the stress, displacement, and plastic zone distribution; and calculated the factor of safety (FOS). Tao et al [14] used the Fish language in 3DEC to establish a large deformation numerical analysis mechanical model of an NPR anchor cable.…”

3D Numerical Simulation of Landslides for the Full High Waste Dump Using SPH Method

“…Even though the safety factor of dump slope could be obtained by solving the limit equilibrium equations of the dump system, such safety factor cannot be used to describe the evolution of the slope, which usually involves large deformation of the dump materials. Over the years, the finite difference methods were also applied to analyze the stability of waste dump [5][6][7][8], but most of them were used to study the static problems, and only the evolution of potential sliding surface or plastic zone was obtained. Due to the large scale and height of the dumps, researchers usually use physical model tests to study their stability [9].…”