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Waste Dump Failure Runout Analyses : Applying Improved Empirical Correlation Methods to Waste Dump Datasets

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

Mine waste dumps are often constructed as loose, end-dumped slopes on steep terrain. Established practice is well suited for characterizing waste materials and their stability; however, available empirical tools to estimate the potential runout of waste dump failures provide very approximate results. A study in the 1990s established a database of coal mine waste dump failures and developed empirical tools to estimate runout distance and inundation area for mobile failures. The study found limited correlations to the source volume and other attributes, unless events are sorted by foundation conditions and the spreading potential in the travel path. This paper describes a re-evaluation of the earlier waste dump failure database to improve relationships between fall height, deposit volume, and runout length by incorporating additional sitespecific parameters to describe the nature of the runout path. Improved statistical techniques that have previously been applied to rock avalanches and open pit slope failures were used. A good correlation is observed between the runout length equation developed in this paper and the observed deposits when lateral confinement is applied as an indicator variable in a multiple linear regression analysis. This paper provides the methodology to apply the equation in practice and a description of the accuracy practitioners can expect from the relationship. The proposed method is demonstrated by analyzing the 1966 Aberfan failure.

Text

2023-12-08

Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/86812

Unreviewed

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