Characterisation of a subaqueously-deposited silt iron ore tailings

What is it about?

Characterising tailings is important to design the facilities in which they are stored. Geotechnical engineers have two main methods to do so - penetration tests, where a probe is pushed through the ground providing various data, and laboratory tests of samples in a controlled setting. Both have advantages and disadvantages - for example, penetration tests often rely on semi-empirical correlations, whereas laboratory samples require "reconstitution" in the laboratory for many tailings, which may affect the relevance of the results. These difficulties continue to create uncertainty in the attempts of geotechnical engineers to characterise tailings. This work attempts to correlate penetration and laboratory tests to improve the understanding of a particular iron ore tailings. Different laboratory methods are used to see if they provide a similar result.

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