Mechanical response of highly gap-graded mixtures of waste rock and tailings. Part II: Undrained cyclic and post-cyclic shear response

Abstract

Mixing of waste rock and tailings as a homogeneous mixture (referred to as “paste rock”) has been suggested as a favourable approach to overcome deficiencies associated with traditional methods of mine waste disposal. In consideration of the current limited understanding of the fundamental mechanical response of paste rock, a laboratory research program was undertaken to investigate the monotonic and cyclic shear response of paste rock. This paper presents the findings from undrained cyclic triaxial shear testing conducted on saturated paste rock specimens reconstituted such that the tailings would “just fill” the void spaces between the coarse particles of the skeleton. During undrained cyclic loading, paste rock typically exhibited a cumulative decrease in effective stress along with a progressive degradation of shear stiffness. The material generally displayed a higher tendency for strain development under cyclic loading when compared with rock-only and tailings-only specimens subjected to similar consolidation and cyclic loading conditions. However, no strain-softening or loss of shear strength was observed, suggesting that the material is unlikely to experience flow failure under undrained cyclic loading. The cyclic shear resistance was relatively insensitive to the initial effective confining pressure ([Formula: see text]) for the tested stress levels of [Formula: see text] < 400 kPa.