Data Acquisition for Geotechnical Analysis in Tailing Design and Survey: Approach using CPT Technique

摘要

The use of cone penetration tests (CPT), also called “Dutch Cone”, named after its country of origin, and has a long history in civil engineering. It was developed and used in the last decades to provide raw data for immediate assessment of soil stratigraphy, soil classification, pore water pressure, and soil strength, among others. Over the years, a large number of correlations for interpretation of soil parameters have been identified and are now partly considered to be “standards”. There are relationships which allow the interpretation of the relative density of granular soils and the consistency of cohesive soils whilst measuring the cone penetration resistance of the cone into the ground. Thus, the bearing capacity of soils for many design situations may be assessed in a fast and reliable manner from the overseeing engineer. Considering tailing materials (dumps and dams) as being comparable to the natural soft soils described generally by relative density and consistency, we may draw an analogy between the soil properties obtained in tailings and those obtained in natural soils with widely-used CPT-interpretation methods. Nevertheless, the peculiarities which may exist from site to site in mining must be considered. By means of example, a mine site from the current engineering practice in Germany will be presented emphasizing special points concerning data acquisition using CPT-Testing.