Tailings facility designs can save water at mines

At the start of the design process, the design problem and solution have to be conceptualised to allow for the design objectives for a tailings facility to be formulated. A range of techniques can then be used and applied to undertake the design, including appropriate analyses, to ensure water saving at mines,” says consulting engineers and scientists SRK Consulting South Africa principal civil geotechnical engineer Adriaan Meintjes. Meintjes adds that, in the past decade and following a series of significant, recent tailings storage facility (TSF) failures worldwide, mining houses, consulting engineers and TSF contractors have refocused on new best-practice principles for design of tailings dams.