Spatial variation of physical and mechanical properties of tailings under different rainfall intensities and the interaction pattern

Abstract With the continuous mining, a huge amount of mine waste has accumulated in tailing dams in China. The increasing frequency of abnormal rainfall in China poses a significant threat to the stability of tailings dams. It is important to study spatial variation of physical and mechanical properties of tailings for the process of dam destabilization due to rainfall. The Luomukeng tailings dam, Jiangxi province, China, was selected as the research object and the changes of physical parameters of tailings at different spatial locations under different rainfall intensities and influence on the tailing’s mechanical properties were studied. The correlations between the parameters were analyzed by Spearman correlation analysis. The results showed that rainfall led to particle migration, with a high number of fine particles repositioning. The greater the intensity of rainfall, the more significant the migration of particles, the more obvious the changes of physical and mechanical properties of tailings. Based on Spearman correlation analysis results, it was obtained that the change of inhomogeneity coefficient of tailings has the strongest effect on cohesion, and the change of water content has the strongest effect on friction angle.