Evaluation of Consolidation Behavior of Mine Tailings

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a physical and numerical model study of impounded gold mine tailings produced at Boddington Gold Mine in Western Australia. The centrifuge modeling technique is used to replicate the staged filling of the tailings impoundment to assess both the short‐ and long‐term consolidation behavior of the tailings. At the time of testing, filling of the impoundment is nearly complete, and field data are available for comparison at various stages in the model construction. Numerical analyses of the centrifuge tests are also performed and found to give encouraging results. The good agreement between the field and centrifuge model data and the numerical results allows predictions of the future behavior of the tailings to be made with a high degree of confidence.