Modelling tailings dam in a geotechnical centrifuge using a hybrid loading simulator

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4. Modelling tailings dam in a geotechnical centrifuge using a hybrid loading simulator

Many earth and tailing storage facilities have failed in the last ten years. Aside from seismic activity, seepage and slope instability are the most frequent causes of failure. The present research work examines the performance of a scaled down model of water retention type (WRT) tailings dam subjected to a high gravity environment. A large beam geotechnical centrifuge with a radius of 4.5 meters, located at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India, is employed. For tailings dams and other water retention-type structures, a reliable in-flight simulator was custom-designed with the consideration of the pertinent scaling laws to simulate (a) reservoir filling and drawdown, (b) steady-state seepage, and (c) inertial or pseudo-static loading conditions at high g-levels. The simulator is capable of producing a maximum tilting angle of 20° (equivalent to horizontal seismic coefficient of 0.36) with tilting rates varying from 0.2°/min to 0.8°/min at enhanced gravity levels and reservoir filling at the rate of 0.5 m/day to 2.5 m/day. To measure pore-water pressure (PWP) and surface settlement, respectively, and ensure the long-term stability and integrity of the tailings dam, the centrifuge models have been instrumented with pore pressure and displacement sensors. In addition, the front elevations of the centrifuge models were taken using an on-board digital camera so that digital image analysis (DIA) could be performed to infer failure patterns, surface settlements, and slope face movements. Effectively illustrating the tailings dam's performance, the results also define the slip surface and failure pattern and measure the horizontal seismic coefficient (K_Hyield and K_Hmax), a vital design parameter associated with inertial loading.

4th Asia-Pacific Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (ACPMG2024)

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