Abstract

Choosing impoundments as the method of tailings disposal for mining processes necessitates the construction of tailings dams. As various types of chemicals remaining from the mining processes are retained in the pond behind a tailings dam, a dam failure may result in environmental damages in addition to threatening lives. Therefore, the distribution and distance to which tailings would travel in the case of a dam failure is important to determine the amount of potential damage. The aim of this research was to study the feasibility of modeling tailings following a dam breach based on the available data in the literature and reach the same distribution and travelling distance of the tailings as in the physical incidents. The numerical tool chosen for this research would simulate tailings as a Non-Newtonian fluid using a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. To calibrate the simulation tool a series of flume tests on two different tailings pastes from two different operation stages of Bulyanhulu gold mine (Tanzania) was modeled. The flume was created in the simulation tool and more than so simulations were run to calibrate the simulation tool. Through these tests the effects of changes in the values assigned to parameters related to tailings and their environment on the model were studied. Practical application of the model was performed by using a digital elevation model (DEM) of the areas of two reported tailings dam failures in the simulation tool and repeatedly running tests with changes in the values for the terrain and tailings parameters to compare the results with the literature reported distribution of tailings outflow.