Estudo do fluxo gravitacional mássico e sua influência na contaminação por água-barro na fase I da mina Diablo Regimiento, El Teniente – Chile

Abstract

El Teniente mine has a history of mud rushes events. A mud rush is a sudden uncontrollable entry of a material knows as wet mud. Some of these events are violent, damaging productive area, equipment and even taken some worker´s lives. The risk of mud rush is so high, just the appearance of wet mud in the drawpoints presents a latent threat to the people working in the area and the productive capacity of the mine. Because of that when the presence of wet mud in points exceeds a limit the affected areas are closed, leaving reserves still to be extracted. This report makes a preliminary study of the gravity flow in both in situ rock and in the cavity material (this is the material left by the old exhausted mines located above the current exploitation, in El Teninte this material is also known as “ Quebrado”). For in situ rock, the diameter of the ellipsoid extraction calculated was 21.2 m (extraction mesh 17.32 x 20m) and the “quebrado” material of 11,2m (8.66 extraction mesh x 10 m), or roughly half. In parallel, it was noted that the height of extracting the “quebrado” material is about four times the height of the rock extraction in situ, causing a premature entry of wet mud at the points of extraction. The results presented that the contamination by wet mud in Diablo Regiment is directly related to the sectors above and their historical of wet mud contamination and the situation on the surface of the crater resulting from the extraction. The following research highlights the importance of considering each material to be exploring in the early planning stages of projects in order to scale a extraction mesh appropriate to this material, so that there may be a better control of extraction and understanding their behavior .