Open Collections

Successes with Hydraulic Dewatered Stacking at the El Soldado Demonstration Facility

Tailings and Mine Waste Conference (2023 : Vancouver, B.C.); University of British Columbia. Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering

Hydraulic Dewatered Stacking (HDS) is an engineered co-disposal approach that uses a fines-free sand, derived from the tailings themselves, to deliver robust and effective omnipresent drainage channels throughout the tailings facility, accelerating consolidation and dewatering. Since its inception in 2019, Anglo American (AA) have rapidly developed the science behind the new tailings system and designed, built, and commissioned a bespoke 150,000 m³ capacity greenfield tailings facility at the El Soldado Mine in Chile. This paper presents the results of the first nine months of operation, detailing the lessons learned from the highly instrumented facility. The demonstration has delivered significant insights into real-time moisture content and consolidation monitoring, revealing the zone of influence of the drainage channels. Lessons have been learned on dealing with extensive instrumentation with a view to developing fit-for-purpose real-time monitoring solutions for tailings facilities. HDS is delivering on the promise shown through proof of concept (PoC) testing and modelling and has generated significant interest from the industry. The accelerated roll-out of the technology is under-way, with studies completed or in progress at both AA sites and third-party facilities.

Text

2023-12-08

Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/86793

Unreviewed

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