Start-up mechanism and dynamic process of landslides in the full highwaste dump

Abstract

Landslides often occur in the open-pit mine dump, which is harmful to the safety operation of mines and slopes. In this work, the landslides that occurred in 2014 at Nanfen open-pit mine of China are studied to understand the triggering mechanism and dynamic process of landslides in the full high waste dump. Field investigation, hydrogeological data analysis, satellite map data, and numerical simulation are combined to analyze and evaluate the landslides. The study shows that the continuous and intensive dumping can lead to shear failure under the action of self-weight. The shear strength of loose dump bodies significantly relies on the water content, freeze-thaw cycle, pore pressure, and gradation of the dump soils. These factors result in the occurrence of landslides in the dump slope. The predictions by the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method show that the shape, influence range, and slip distance of landslides are consistent with that of the field investigation. The present study shows that the SPH method is a powerful numerical technique to describe landslides' problems.