TITLE:
Modeling of Wind Erosion of the Aitik Tailings Dam Using SWEEP Model
AUTHORS:
Qi Jia, Nadhir Al-Ansari, Sven Knutsson
KEYWORDS:
Dust, Wind Erosion, Tailings Dam, SWEEP Model
JOURNAL NAME:
Engineering,
Vol.6 No.7,
June
11,
2014
ABSTRACT: Waste impoundments
are usually not protected by any growing crops, soil roughness, or wind
barriers, and dust due to wind erosion of the surface waste material can be a
major environmental problem. The tailings dam in Aitik is highly susceptible to
wind erosion when it is dry and windy. Strong dust storms may occur during dry
seasons. These events are short-lived but may transport a huge amount of
particulate matter and adversely impact air quality in downwind areas. This
study estimated material loss from the Aitik tailings dam using SWEEP model.
The simulated total material loss, saltation and creep loss, suspension loss
and PM10 loss were 4.4941 kg/m2, 0.042 kg/m2, 4.4559 kg/m2,
0.264057 kg/m2 respectively. To control the dust generation, wind
breaks could be suggested to be installed at 800 m downwind the west side edge
of the tailings dam to reduce the saltation and creep and it would in turn
reduce suspended emission. The measured total suspended material for five days
by exposure profiling method was 0.475 kg/m2, which had a big
difference with a simulate value of 4.4559 kg/m2. Many reasons
contributed to the disagreement of simulated value and measured value in this
study. In order to use the model for mining industry, more tests are needed to
validate the modeling result, and calibration methods could be useful in
adjusting the internal coefficients and empirical equations.