While not specific to tailings, this webinar includes valuable knowledge for tailings engineers. This webinar will teach you how to apply unsaturated soil mechanics for more reasonable evaluation of field collapse. It will provide you with a basic understanding of wetting-induced collapse behavior in natural and compacted soils. It will address proper sampling methods, laboratory sample preparation and testing techniques to evaluate collapse potential of natural and compacted soils. You will learn the importance of unsaturated soil mechanics in the evaluation of and solution to collapse settlements associated with embankment and foundation loading.
?Tailings transport is an integrated element in any wet tailings storage facility (TSF). Tailings from the process plant are often thickened to a moderate or relatively high (but still pumpable) solids concentration, depending on several parameters mainly the TSF deposition requirements and strategies, process plant water security status and the dewatering technology utilised. This paper overviews the transportation of paste and thickened tailings and discusses various aspects and considerations in the hydraulic design of the system. Material characteristics, flow behaviour assessment (rheological behaviour measurement and interpretation) and the basis of design definition are discussed. The recent developments in environmental authoritiesÂ’ regulations associated with the tailings pipeline burst and leakage management are also reviewed in this paper. The tailings leakage and spillage to the environment is one the main concerns for any tailings hydraulic transportation system, therefore as part of the tailings pipeline design, the pipeline integrity failure (due to pipe wear, overpressure bursting etc.) should be thoroughly analysed to propose proper mitigation measures. The paper discusses a methodology to assess the potential tailings volume release to the environment in an event of the pipeline integrity failure which would be of interest to the operators and designers.