David Williams | The University of Queensland

Theme: Avoiding catastrophic failure of tailings facilities

Project title: Enhancing Resilience of Tailings Facilities

Project team:

• The University of Queensland
• Mining3
• CSIRO Mineral Resources – Tailings flow
• BHP
• Golder Associates
• Red Earth Engineering
• Flow Science Australasia

Offering to sponsors:

The project will place Australian researchers and practitioners at the forefront in providing expertise to mining companies, consultants and software providers, throughout Australia and globally.

Project summary:

The project will improve understanding of the mechanisms underlying potential tailings dam break and the runout of tailings and water, so that this can be avoided or mitigated. A National Tailings Dam Break and Runout Testing Facility will be established at the Univeristy of Queensland Pinjarra Hills site to study the phenomena. This will provide validation and calibration data to develop improved tailings dam break and runout predictive tools, which will be used to enhance tailings facility disaster resilience and preparedness.

Benefit to industry:

Reduced risk

• Reduced uncertainty and increased resilience and reliability

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