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A two-layer approach for tailings in open channels

Tailings and Mine Waste Conference (2011 : Vancouver, B.C.); University of British Columbia. Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering

In a number of locations around the world the tailings storage area is sufficiently lower than the mineral processing plant to allow disposal by gravity. Most past efforts to represent open channel flows have been empirical and have focused on representing the solid phase as a viscosity problem for which the Manning equation could be used. Empirical equations developed for stormwater flows are difficult to use for tailings as they were often developed for cases of solids that do not exceed few thousand parts per million. As large tailings systems develop to transport solids with volumetric concentration in the range of 20% to 30% different forces interact. The coarsest particles move as a bed load in the bottom layer, while the fines move in a suspended mode in the upper layer. Bed forms develop at the interface between the two layers that include ripples, dunes, anti-dunes and flat planes. With large volumes of solids, a Coulombic force develops that is independent of speed but must be accounted for in friction losses while collisions between particles give rise to the Bagnold stress. The proposed two-layer approach provides a tool to examine the combination of these forces for design of long distance tailings transport in open channels. [All papers were considered for technical and language appropriateness by the organizing committee.]

Text

2011-10-07

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/37846

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/