Geometric scaling of the granulometric curve of granular materials from mining activities

Abstract

The extraction of minerals in mining operations includes the removal of sterile material, as well as the transfer and disposal of these in deposits intended for temporary or permanent storage. These deposits known as waste rock dumps, landfills, or “tepetateras”, comprise materials that due to their size and disposition form cannot be analyzed in the laboratory and in the field, to obtain parameters of shear resistance, compressibility, and permeability, with the objective to perform designs or physical stability evaluations. The development and construction of large-scale equipment allows the analysis of larger specimens, but their availability is scarce. Currently, there are various methodologies that allow particle sizes to be reduced so that they can be tested on a smaller scale or conventional equipment. Among the methods developed is that of geometric scaling of the granulometric curve, and its use was initially given in the construction of rock dams. In this research, an analysis of this method is carried out, with application on dumped rockfills.