Abstract
Paste fill is popularly used in underground mines. A large amount of water is added into fills to facilitate their pipe transportation. Upon placement, the self-weight consolidation in paste fill can lead to the generation of excess pore-water pressures. To avoid excess pressures applied on the retaining structure, filling is usually staged with an undesirable curing interval. Recent numerical analyses conducted by the authors indicated that pre-installing wick drains in backfilled stopes can accelerate the consolidation, and thus enable continuous filling. In previous analyses, however, a zero pressure head was imposed along the wick drains and the effect of third dimension was ignored. These tend to overestimate the fill’s consolidation. In this paper, more representative numerical models are performed with GeoStudio, with the three-dimensional drainage around a wick drain converted to an equivalent plane-strain condition. Moreover, the fill permeability in the drift is reduced, compared to that in the stope, to mimic the restricted flow via the drawpoint. The results show that the consolidation of paste fill depends largely on the wick drain layout (spacing). The effect of wick drain size is also evaluated.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Fahey M, Helinski M, Fourie A (2009) Some aspects of the mechanics of arching in backfilled stopes. Can Geotech J 46(11):1322–1336
Geo-Slope: Stress-Deformation Modeling with SIGMA/W, GEO-SLOPE International Ltd., Calgary (2007)
Godbout J, Bussière B, Aubertin M, Belem T (2007) Evolution of cemented paste backfill saturated hydraulic conductivity at early curing time. In: 60th canadian geotechnical conference, Ottawa, Canada
Hansbo S (1979) Consolidation of clay by band-shaped prefabricated drains. Ground Eng 12(5):16–25
Hansbo S: Consolidation of fine-grained soils by prefabricated drains. In: 10th international conference on soil mechanics and foundation engineering, vol. 3, pp. 677–682. AA. Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (1981)
Hird CC, Pyrah IC, Russell D (1992) Finite element modelling of vertical drains beneath embankments on soft ground. Géotechnique 42(3):499–511
Indraratna B, Redana IW (1997) Plane strain modeling of smear effects associated with vertical drains. J Geotech Eng 123(5):474–478
Li L (2013) A new concept of backfill design - application of wick drains in backfilled stopes. Int J Min Sci Technol 23:763–770
Li L, Yang PY (2015) A numerical evaluation of continuous backfilling in cemented paste backfilled stope through an application of wickdrains. Int J Min Sci Technol 25(6):897–904
Potvin Y, Thomas E, Fourie A (2005) Handbook on Mine Fill. ACG, Perth, Australia
Thompson BD, Grabinsky MW, Bawden WF (2012) In situ measurements of cemented paste backfill at Cayeli Mine. Can Geotech J 49(7):755–772
Yang P, Li L (2017) Evolution of water table and pore-water pressure in stopes with submerged hydraulic fill. Int J Geomech 17(9):04017052
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support of the NSERC (402318), IRSST (2013-0029), FRQNT (2015-MI-191676), Mitacs Elevate Postdoctoral Fellowship (IT08484), and industrial partners of Research Institute on Mines and Environment (RIME UQAT-Polytechnique; http://rime-irme.ca/en).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Yang, P., Li, L., Yang, G. (2019). A Numerical Study of the Effect of Wick Drains Applied in Mine Stopes with Paste Fill. In: Zhan, L., Chen, Y., Bouazza, A. (eds) Proceedings of the 8th International Congress on Environmental Geotechnics Volume 3. ICEG 2018. Environmental Science and Engineering(). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2227-3_28
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2227-3_28
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-2226-6
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-2227-3
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)