Analysis of seepage, contaminant transport, compaction and safety of the Zhaoli ditch dam, a tailing reservoir : A modeling study of a tailing reservoir with GeoStudio

Abstract: Inthe mining industry people remove rock from the ground to obtain a metal ore. Afterprocessing , the uneconomic fraction called tailings is deposited as a slurry in large reservoirs .The processing adds water and chemical agents to the tailings so that the original structure ofthe material therefore changes, which make storage of tailings complicated. If a tailingreservoir c ollapse s , it can damage p roperties and life downstream . In addition, tailings maycontain contaminants that disturb living organism s and contaminated groundwater in the localarea even under normal operation s . Therefore, tracing the contaminants and study ing thestability of the tailing reservoir s are important. The aim of the thesis is to investigate seepage,contaminant transport, tailings compaction and slope stability of the Zhaoli ditch tailingsreservoir (China) during its construction and afterwards. Simulations are performed with thecomputer program GeoStudio . According to the simulations and the conditions , contaminanttransport was highly related with total head. Total head boundary conditi ons have also a largeeffect on slope stability. The area that has most vertical displacement is at the middle of thetailing s reservoir , and the greatest change of vertical displacement is located near the slope,w here the vertical displacement can increa se 0.5 meter over a 1 0 30 meter distance. Theslope stability can be different from case to case, but the original designed tailing reservoirhave a good safety factor, indicating that the slope is not going to collapse easily.