Mechanical and permeation response characteristics of basalt fibre reinforced tailings to different reinforcement technologies: an experimental study

Tailings dam is a man-made hazard with high potential energy; dam failure would cause great losses to human lives and properties. However, the limitations of conventional reinforcement methods like geosynthetic make it easy to slide along the weak structural plane. In this paper, we innovatively added basalt fibre (BF) with different lengths (l) and contents (omega) into tailings to study its mechanical and permeation characteristics. The results indicate that BF can improve the shear strength (tau), cohesion (c) and compression index (C-c) of tailings, but it has little effect on internal friction angle (phi). When l is constant, tau, c and C-c are positively correlated with omega. One notable phenomenon is that tau and c do not constantly increase with l when omega is constant, but obtain the maximum under the optimal length of 6 mm. Moreover, when omega > 0.6%, permeability coefficient (k) is greater than that of the original tailings and the sensitivity of c, phi, tau, C-c, k to fibre content is greater than that of length. The research results facilitate the understanding of BF reinforced tailings, and could serve as references for improving the safety of tailings dam and other artificial soil slopes or soil structures.

Automated summary

The addition of basalt fibre can improve the mechanical properties of tailings, with little impact on the internal friction angle. With a constant length, the content is positively correlated with shear strength, cohesion, and compression index, reaching maximum at 6mm length. Permeability coefficient increases when fibre content exceeds 0.6%, with greater sensitivity to content than length.