ENGINEERING PROPERTIES OF POTASH TAILINGS
| dc.contributor.advisor | Pufahl, D. E. | |
| dc.creator | Loi, Jude Iok-kei | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2019-03-28T19:32:46Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2019-03-28T19:32:46Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 1988-10 | |
| dc.date.submitted | October 1988 | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | In 1984 the Saskatchewan potash industries produced approximately 28 million tonnes of solid salt tailings. To deal with this massive volume of potash tailings, knowledge of their properties is required. This will ensure a better engineering design of the tailings piles and better management of the material, such as using it for underground backfilling. This research has established some of the physical properties of potash tailings such as the compressibility, shear strength and permeability. The shear strength of the slimes, consisting mainly of clay minerals was a reddish material also investigated. Compressibility is of particular interest because it was felt that the tailings should eventually be used for backfilling purposes. Results show that the compressibility of potash tailings is larger than most of the soils. Due to its creep properties high density tailings 2.10 Mg/m3 can be achieved under small load. A rheological model, the Burger model, was used to simulate the compressibility of potash tailings that were tested in this program. Success was limited to short periods of test duration. Triaxial tests provided peak angles of shearing resistance of 55° and 48° for densities of 1.65 Mg/m3 and 1.60 Mg/m3 respectively for an effective confining pressure under 827 kPa. This high angle of shearing resistance is explained by the crushing of the salt grains which was observed during the failure Elastic properties of potash tailings were also investigated during the triaxial tests. Initial deformation moduli were found to be in the range of 258 MPa to SOS MPa for laboratory samples and 575 MPa to 705 MPa for field samples. Poisson's ratios were found to be 0.39 to 0.50 for laboratory samples and 0.25 to 0.46 for field samples. Permeability of the potash tailings at densities of 1.45 Mg/m3 to 1.55 Mg/m3 -4 was found to be in the range of 10 m/s, and the results indicated that the log of permeability is linearly related to its void ratio. Direct shear tests on potash tailings slimes established the peak friction angle to be 33-0 and the residual values to be 28°. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10388/11932 | |
| dc.title | ENGINEERING PROPERTIES OF POTASH TAILINGS | en_US |
| dc.type.genre | Thesis | en_US |
| thesis.degree.department | Civil Engineering | en_US |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Civil Engineering | en_US |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Saskatchewan | en_US |
| thesis.degree.level | Masters | en_US |
| thesis.degree.name | Master of Science (M.Sc.) | en_US |