Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Date
02 Jun 1993, 2:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Abstract
The seismic failure of Barahona Tailings Dam has been analyzed. Causes of failure were decrease of the shear strength of the slimes and large displacements and breaching of the sand dikes. The dikes were partially founded on the unconsolidated slimes because the dam was built by the upstream method. Liquefied tailings flowed violently down the courses of Barahona creek and Cachapoal River causing heavy destruction over a 50 km long path. It is concluded that the upstream method of construction of tailings dams should not be encouraged in seismic zones; however, it could be considered as an alternative solution, provided that the residual strengths of sands and slimes are properly evaluated.
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
Troncoso, J. H.; Vergara, A.; and Avendaño, A., "Seismic Failure of Barahona Tailings Dam" (1993). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 34.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/3icchge/3icchge-session02/34
Seismic Failure of Barahona Tailings Dam
St. Louis, Missouri
The seismic failure of Barahona Tailings Dam has been analyzed. Causes of failure were decrease of the shear strength of the slimes and large displacements and breaching of the sand dikes. The dikes were partially founded on the unconsolidated slimes because the dam was built by the upstream method. Liquefied tailings flowed violently down the courses of Barahona creek and Cachapoal River causing heavy destruction over a 50 km long path. It is concluded that the upstream method of construction of tailings dams should not be encouraged in seismic zones; however, it could be considered as an alternative solution, provided that the residual strengths of sands and slimes are properly evaluated.
