Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Date
02 Jun 1993, 2:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Abstract
A determination of the phreatic surface in dams constructed of coal refuse, under the criteria set forth in the National Dam Safety Act was made. All of these dams were over 20 years old. Most of the embankments studied were not constructed with any compaction specification and no effort was made to compact the coal refuse. A comparison of actual phreatic surface to the theoretically predicted surface is made using the classical seepage theory and the computer program SEEP. The embankments are old enough to present the steady slope phreatic surface, and thus, provide a good check of the ability of current methods to predict the actual phreatic surface. It was found that the fine refuse deposited in the reservoir acts as an upstream "impermeable" blanket and the phreatic surface remains relatively low. By back calculations, it was determined that the permeability anisotrophy ratio is between 1.1 and 4.2 in uncompacted coal refuse dams.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
3rd Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 1993 University of Missouri--Rolla, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Cowherd, D. C.; Miller, K. C.; and Perlea, V. G., "Seepage Through Mine Tailings Dams" (1993). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 26.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/3icchge/3icchge-session02/26
Seepage Through Mine Tailings Dams
St. Louis, Missouri
A determination of the phreatic surface in dams constructed of coal refuse, under the criteria set forth in the National Dam Safety Act was made. All of these dams were over 20 years old. Most of the embankments studied were not constructed with any compaction specification and no effort was made to compact the coal refuse. A comparison of actual phreatic surface to the theoretically predicted surface is made using the classical seepage theory and the computer program SEEP. The embankments are old enough to present the steady slope phreatic surface, and thus, provide a good check of the ability of current methods to predict the actual phreatic surface. It was found that the fine refuse deposited in the reservoir acts as an upstream "impermeable" blanket and the phreatic surface remains relatively low. By back calculations, it was determined that the permeability anisotrophy ratio is between 1.1 and 4.2 in uncompacted coal refuse dams.
