(10)Ultimate Quality Assurance on Liner Installation by Using State of the Art Electric Leak Location Technologies

摘要

The requirement for the protection of the environment and public health is increasing at tailingsdams and heap leach facilities.The installation of a geomembrane liner provides an additional level of safety and facilitatescommunity and regulatory approval, since the liner is perceived as a guarantee of a lowpermeability barrier.However, even under a strict CQA protocols, installed liners may contain defects, which may notbe detectable by visual observation or traditional field test, like vacuum tests.By incorporating electrical leak location (ELL) using the arc testing method (ASTM D7953-14) as anadditional layer of quality control into the CQA protocols, liner defects as small as 1 mm may bedetected and repaired.This technology increases the safety of the facility by several orders of magnitude, both from anenvironmental and a stability point of view, by eliminating leaks and potential future differentialsettlement or even collapse of the lined facility.Based on real case field data, the authors will demonstrate the results that can be obtained with thistechnology.