A coupled large strain consolidation-unsaturated flow model for tailings deposition analysis

P Simms

In the proceedings of: GeoVancouver 2016: 69th Canadian Geotechnical Conference

Session: ENERGY RESOURCES - II Mining and Tailings

ABSTRACT: UNSAT-CON implements a formulation for simulating coupled large strain consolidation and unsaturated flow using a mass conservative solution developed from piecewise-linear consolidation theory. Recent publications have verified the capacity of this formulation to make predictions for monotonic dewatering. The capacity to accurately model multilayer deposition of tailings, which requires hardening laws for both mechanical and wetting behaviour due to consolidation and desiccation, and consideration of wet-dry hysteresis, has only been recently implemented, and is described and tested in this paper. The multilayer formulation is tested using published data from a mesoscale laboratory simulation of thickened tailings dewatering.

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P Simms (2016) A coupled large strain consolidation-unsaturated flow model for tailings deposition analysis in GEO2016. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Geotechnical Society.

@article{4247_0804090206,author = P Simms,title = A coupled large strain consolidation-unsaturated flow model for tailings deposition analysis,year = 2016}