Constitutive modelling of instabilities and strengths of an unsaturated tailings

¹ Centre for Infrastructure Engineering and Safety, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW Sydney, NSW, Australia
² School of Engineering, The University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.

^* Corresponding author: a.russell@unsw.edu.au

Abstract

Instabilities mostly happen in fully saturated and loose non-cohesive geomaterials like sands or silts or tailings, but it is also possible in unsaturated geomaterials. When unsaturated they can experience a reduction in effective stress and strain soften during water (and air) undrained loading, attaining a very low residual strength. This study focuses on modelling the conditions required to cause instability in unsaturated silty tailings, giving particular consideration to the presence of air and the way it alters the ability for volume change when it remains trapped inside the tailings. A gold tailings is used to calibrate the UNSW boundingsurface plasticity model. The effect of air, including the volumetric change caused by air compression, the alteration of air pressure, the contribution of suction to the effective stress, and suction hardening, are explored. Collapse lines (sometimes referred to as instability lines or flow liquefaction lines which represent boundaries between stable and potentially unstable stress states) in the 𝑞𝑞 − 𝑝𝑝′ plane are explored. The undrained shear strength ratios and slopes of the collapse lines are compared to those of other tailings andsands when unsaturated.