Slope Stability of Tailing Dam Under Seismic Excitation

The slope stability analysis of the tailing dams or mine dumps becomes a more challenging task for engineers when they are subjected to a combination of static and dynamic loadings. Several tailing dam failures have been observed in the past worldwide. The failure of tailing dam not only releases the waste deposit to the surrounding but also yields the property damage and cause environmental threat to the locality. The waste deposit may liquefy under the earthquake with an increase of the horizontal load on the saturated dam tailing. Hence failure of the dam under liquefaction may lead to catastrophe. In 2015, Samarco tailing dam has failed under the earthquake condition. When the dynamic loading associates with horizontal seismic load along with vertical load, it may reduce the stability of slope leading to failure. A two-dimensional numerical attempt has been made by utilising the commercial software Geostudio, and the same is presented in this paper. Initially stability of the slope is evaluated by considering the finite element stress analysis. A staged pseudo-static analysis has been presented to the study the effect of factor of safety of tailing dam under the action of both horizontal and vertical seismic loads.