Comportamento de uma área de resíduos de bauxita durante a operação de enchimento.

Abstract

The technique of disposing of waste bauxite processing provides an initial launch of operation, the wet disposal, within artificial reservoirs. In this phase of deposition, the waste is released in the form of pulp, suffering processes of sedimentation and consolidation by self-weight. The useful life of the reservoirs depends crucially on the Geotechnical behavior of the residue, whose properties vary over time and depth. The present dissertation aims to behavior analysis of a bauxite waste area during the operation of filling the tank. To this end, we used the program Plaxis, which performs stress-strain analyses by the finite element method. The Geotechnical parameters of residue were defined based on piezocone, consolidation and tests carried out on representative samples of waste pulp. For calibration of the bathymetry model executed in the reservoir was faced with filling quotas provided for numerically. Finally, the distribution of geotechnical parameters (specific weight, void ratio, permeability) with the depth expected numerically was confronted with the values measured in the field, at the end of the filling stage. Knowledge of geotechnical parameters variation with depth at the end of the filling is important to evaluate the behavior of the reservoir in heightening operation step, and for the estimation of the useful life of the reservoir. The results made it possible to assess the functioning of the Fund drainage, the complex distribution of excess pore pressure dissipations at the end of the filling, the profiles of physical indexes with the depth and the gain of life. The analysis showed that the program was able to reproduce the simultaneous processes of sedimentation and consolidation by selfweight, in analyses of reservoir filling of waste.