Investigation of soil engineering properties for safe design and construction of the iron ore tailing dam

Abstract

The need for the disposal of iron ore tailings in an environmentally friendly manner is of great concern to the mining authority. It is envisaged that by the end of this century, India would be generating 27 Mt of iron ore tailings per year for which safe disposal by way of containment in tailing ponds are needed. For the safe design and construction of the tailing

dam as well as for the augmentation of its existing capacity, detailed field and laboratory investigations are described here. To augment capacity of the tailing pond, raising height of the existing tailing dam in two stages of 5<i> </i>m each is conceived. Samples have been collected from soil and tailing borrow areas by making pits up to 2 m depth. Bore holes have been

drilled and seismic studies are carried out to establish the depth of bed and its thickness. Standard penetration test (SPT) and permeability test have also been conducted. Undisturbed soil samples along with disturbed samples have been collected and existence of ground water table is noted. Details of the bore log data and <i>in situ </i>test results have been discussed and laboratory tests are conducted on the collected samples. Bulk geology and foundation treatment, construction material and design data used, method of stability analysis and software used for stability analysis are also described.