Characterization of Old Tailings under Unsaturated

Conditions
Jose Ale1*, Cesar Luna1, Jose Ccotohuanca1, James McCord2 and Carlos Jimenez3
1. Geotechnical Department, E&IS, Wood plc, Peru
2. Geosystems International, USA
3. MINSUR, Peru

ABSTRACT
As a result of new metallurgical processing techniques, an old tailings storage facility located in the
southern Andes of Peru has acquired economic importance. For this reason, it is proposed to
redevelop the mine with a new open pit that will cut through the tailings storage facility. The tailings
will also be reprocessed.
The tailings storage facility is located on the glacial valley, with a tailings thickness of up to 50 m. The
tailings dam is composed of coarse tailings (silty sands), and has been built following the raising
method of upstream embankment. Upstream of the dam, the stored material is mostly composed of
fine tailings (low plasticity silt and clay). The initial groundwater level is at 10 meters depth, which
means that most of tailings are saturated.
The proposed mining method is the excavation by conventional equipment (excavators) and
transport by trucks. Therefore, the tailings material to be excavated must have a water content that
allows the execution of the work. It has proposed a dewatering plan within the tailings storage
facility, to thereby ensure the workability of the tailings material. The tailings dewatering modelling
consider the unsaturated behaviour of the hydraulic properties.
This paper presents the geotechnical design of the cut slopes in tailings at different water content
(which ranges from 3% to 25% after dewatering). To perform this characterization, a field
geotechnical investigation and a laboratory program were conducted. The field investigation was
composed of: drillings, SPT, CPT, pumping wells, and Shelby sampling. Laboratory tests program
consisted of: soil-water characteristic curves, grain size by sedimentation, specific gravity, and triaxial
compression tests. The unsaturated behaviour (soil-water characteristic curve) was obtained from
two ways: laboratory tests, and correlations from the global grain size of the tailings material.