Characterization of gold mine tailings variability and its influence in the study of drainage conditions in the CPTu test

Resumo

The effect of drainage conditions on piezocone test (CPTu) measurements is a critical factor in the
assessment of mine tailings properties, as the material is in the intermediate permeability range. Studies of drainage
conditions have been carried out by identifying a characteristic drainage curve. However, accurately identifying
the range of drainage variation is a challenge due to high variability of the material. In this sense, this paper
provides tools to assist the understanding of the effects of data dispersion over the definition of a drainage
characteristic curve. A reference analysis is presented herein in where a characteristic profile of a CPTu test in
gold tailings is used to quantify the statistics and its application. A numerical analysis of cavity expansion is used
to obtain theoretical drainage curves. The variability characterized was applied to the numerical simulations, using
the Monte Carlo method, to define in a rational way the range of possible theoretical drainage curves.