CONTRIBUTION ON RESTORATION OD TAILINGS DAMS DAMAGED AT INITIAL PERIOD OF CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

The similarities between the tailing dams and the embankment dams for water storage have contributed a great number of procedures and techniques in the design, construction and maintenance of the conventional dams, to be applied to tailings dams. However, the numerous reports of collapses of the tailing dams in the last three decades, all over the World, indicate that the safety in the phases of design and construction were not controlled with the same rigor and carefulness - as for the embankment dams. This fact, in part, results from the long-term construction of the tailings dams, where as a building material is used sand obtained by separating of the waste material from floatation process during the exploitation of the mine. In this paper are presented results from the research and insights of the tailings dam Sasa 4 of mine Sasa, Makedonska Kamenica, Republic of North Macedonia, damaged in the initial period of construction in September, 2020, in order to: (1) detect the reasons for damaging, (2) determine urgent measures for providing of the required stability of the tailings dam at elevation 910.0 m asl, (3) to define measures for landscaping of the surrounding terrain and upgrade of the structures and the equipment for restarting of the tailings dam by current elevation of dam crest at 910.0 m asl and (4) to foreseen measures for further safe service of the tailings and construction of the tailings dam, from current elevation of 910.0 m asl till final elevation at 952.0 m asl.