Stability and settlement characteristics of mine tailings and of hydraulically placed power station fly ash.
Stability and settlement characteristics of mine tailings and of hydraulically placed power station fly ash.
Silt sized materials that have been deposited through water initially form very loose deposits. These materials may be of natural origin, but are often the result of industrial processes, for example mine tailings, dredging and the burning of pulverised fuel ash. There is considerable interest in the behaviour of these materials with regards to stability, environmental impact and the redevelopment potential of disposal sites.
Recently the School of Civil Engineering has completed projects investigating the settlement behaviour of hydraulic placed pfa (partly funded by industry) and the factors controlling the loading collapse behaviour of loose tailings (partly funded by the EU TAILSAFE project on the sustainable improvement in safety of mine tailings facilities). These projects demonstrated the need to measure the engineering properties of these materials in-situ and showed the impact of secondary compression on the engineering properties of aged deposits.
