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Hydrometallurgy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/hydromet
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallurgy, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education of China for High-Efcient Mining and Safety of Metal Mines, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
State Key Laboratory of Comprehensive Utilization of Low-Grade Refractory Gold Ores, Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd, Shanghang 364200, China
a r t i c l e
i n f o
a b s t r a c t
A simulation framework is outlined for the analysis of the saturated and unsaturated ow behaviors within a
waste rock dump. The traditional inherent black-box approach for treating waste rock dumps has resulted in
generalizations that sometimes prove inaccurate. The hydrodynamics play an important role in terms of leaching
reaction kinetics, heat and solute transport. The coexistence of saturated and unsaturated ows within the dump
makes the ow behavior complicated. In this study, X-ray CT (SOMATOM Sensation 16) was used to obtain the
real pore structure of the packed waste rocks. The meso-scale saturated ow process was visualized through
solving the governing equation by the COMSOL Multiphysics software. The velocity eld depends strongly on
the distribution of channels, pore connectivity and curvature. The macro-scale unsaturated velocity eld within
the dump was obtained. The information drawn from this model can be used to improve the understanding
of the hydrodynamics within waste rock dumps.
2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Waste rock dump is a major environmental concern, common to
most hard rock mines that contain suldic minerals such as pyrite
or chalcopyrite. The joint action of oxygen and water on these reactive
minerals causes a complex sequence of oxidationreduction reactions
that can produce an acidic leachate (Poisson et al., 2009). Water and circulation into the pile initiate and sustain the acid mine drainage process
(Lefebvre et al., 2001). The reactions occurred inside the dump can be
summarized as follows:
CuFe2 O2 4H Cu
Fe
2S 2H2 O
4SO4 4H
Those reactions induce the release of protons and set off a sequence
of other processes that result in the release of cations and formation
This paper was originally presented at the International Biohydrometallurgy Symposium
(IBS), Changsha, China, 1822 September 2011.
Corresponding author at: Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education of China for
High-Efcient Mining and Safety of Metal Mines, University of Science and Technology
Beijing, Beijing 100083, China.
E-mail address: csuysh@yahoo.com.cn (S. Yin).
0304-386X/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hydromet.2012.11.009
slopes, while ne layers form on the top of the bench. The porosity of these two kinds of layers tends to vary, and so does the
effective diffusivity, which leads to the several orders of magnitude variation in the hydraulic conductivity. The ne interlayers
are prone to become saturated even under small irrigation due to
the small porosity and high capillary and solution hold up.
(3) Large irrigation or heavy rain: Dumps are subject to an application
of a solution of reactants and occasional rain events. A much higher
irrigation rate or heavy rain over a few days could increase the
water content in the dump and saturate the small pores. Saturated
ow response to rainfall events has been observed in a matter of
hours or days in several waste rock dumps. In the tropical areas,
the extreme rain events would enlarge the rafnate ow rate inside the rock dump (Cross et al., 2006). An impermeable material,
such as soil, is recommended to cover the waste rock dump to
reduce rainfall inltration into the dump and acid mined drainage
out of the dump (Willschera and Bosecker, 2003).
The NavierStokes equation is used to describe the local saturated
ow, accepting that the hydraulic properties of waste rock will vary
spatially:
"
!#
Dui
ui uj
L
L g i
pI ij
:
Dt
xj xi
xj
2.2. Unsaturated ow
Saturated zones exist in small part of waste rock dumps, while
unsaturated zones occupy the bulk of the dump. Because metal production from mine waste dumps is limited over the long run to the
rate of oxidation of sulde minerals, attempts to increase production
over the short run by increasing the solution application rate will
generally not improve washing, as intended, but simply increase solution short circuiting through channels and dilute the grade of the
pregnant liquor. As shown by chemical reaction (1), oxygen is important for bacterial and oxidation of sulde minerals. As the diffusion rate of oxygen in water is several orders of magnitude less
than in air, keeping a dump under unsaturated conditions could
benet the transportation of oxygen (Molson et al., 2005).
Under unsaturated condition, the driving force of ow is a vector
sum of gravity and capillary pressure (or suction). The capillary pressure depends on the surface tension of the liquid and the wettability
of the rocks. On a microscopic scale, surface tension is a result of cohesion between the liquid molecules (relative to liquidgas attraction)
(Ilankoon and Neethling, 2012; Sheikhzadeh et al., 2005). Wettability
is a result of adhesive forces between liquid molecules and solid surfaces. Unsaturated ow in porous media is a complex phenomenon
that has been studied extensively for the last 70 years in the area of
soil science and hydrology. The uid ow through rock dumps is
described primarily from soil mechanics, hydrogeology and chemical
engineering theory supported by experimental information.
Unlike saturated ow, where permeability is independent of other
hydraulic parameters, unsaturated ow permeability depends on the
degree of saturation and/or on capillary pressure. Therefore, one cannot
characterize a dump by a single permeability value but, rather, dene
relationships between permeability, saturation and capillary pressure
throughout the dump. Flow through a variably saturated waste rock
dump could be typically characterized by the Richard's equation
description of unsaturated water ow in porous media (Cross et al.,
2006; Pantelis et al., 2002).
t
z
z
z
Bottom
and LB simulation allows for the direct pore ow simulation in 3D particle beds (Lin et al., 2009; Videla et al., 2008). The transport of reactants
during the percolation of leaching solution in heaps could have been
investigated (Dhawan et al., 2012). X-ray CT has also been used to identify exposed mineral grains through 3D analysis of multiphase particles
and the complex pore structure of packed columns before and after
leaching (Garcia et al., 2006; Kodali et al., 2011).
An advanced CT scanner, SOMATOM Sensation 16, was used to scan
the packed column in our research. It combines multi-section images
collecting technology, reconstruction technology and high speed of
rotating as well. The images of 32 sections can be collected per second
and a spatial resolution of 0.35 mm 0.35 mm could be reached for
the samples with the same size of the column.
To obtain the pore structure between the particles is the rst step
to investigate the solution ow inside the rock dump through simulation. More than 600 2-D images have been acquired, scanning from
top to bottom of this column at an interval of 2.5 mm. As shown by
Fig. 2, the particle (light gray) and air (black) could be distinguished
in this image. It is also revealed that the size of particles varies inside
the column, with coarse particles loaded at the top section.
The original gray image couldn't be imported into simulated software directly. The spatial boundary between the pore and the particles
should be distinguished according to the difference in their densities. As
shown by Fig. 3, the 2-D CT data should be pre-processed as the following steps to obtain the le incorporated with the software: (1) cut the
original image with rectangular size of 16 cm 16 cm, (2) threshold
the data to obtain binary particle image, (3) invert the data to obtain
binary pore image, (4) the boundary between pore and particle is
obtained as DXF les, which nally could be imported into software
for pore ow simulation.
4. The simulation tool and boundary conditions
COMSOL Multiphysics is a perfect simulator for problems of variable
density ow in porous media. Script-driven by a programming language that extends the Matlab language, it provides all stages of modeling CAD design, meshing, solution, and visualization via control-panel
operation. The Earth Science module within this simulation tool is used
for both heat and water simulations. The porous media is dened by the
volume fractions of solid particles and water. Once the DXF le derived
from original CT image is imported into this simulator, the pores between
particles are then simultaneously meshed based on an orthotropic grid
intersected by interfaces dening the boundaries (shown by Fig. 4).
Smooth boundaries are obtained by adjusting the interpolation points in
one, or a combination, of two ways: by setting points to reect partial
volumes or by applying a multiple material antialiasing scheme. The
Top
30cm
Fig. 2. Scanning images corresponding to the top, middle and bottom sections of the column.
16cm
Original gray image
Particles boundary
The inlet pressure and the outlet pressure are assumed to be known.
Flow is symmetric about the sides, giving a slip condition. At the inlet
boundary:
p
p0 :
x
P 0:
x
In practice, the edges of the dump are sloped with a at top when
the waste rock was dumped by trucks. Therefore a trapezium waste
Table 1
Overview of all model parameters used in the calibration exercise.
Parameter
Description
Value
Units
H
a
b
a
Da
B
L
a
g
Dump porosity
Bed height
Top length
Bottom length
Air viscosity
Air diffusion coefcient
Bed density
Liquid density
Air density
Acceleration due to gravity
0.4
40
40
80
1.812 105
1.44 105
1410
1000
1.208
9.8
m3/m3
m
m
m
kg/m/s
m2/s
kg/m3
kg/m3
kg/m3
m s2
Maximum velocity:
0.386m/s
Pore center
Outlet boundary
Ore particle
Fig. 5. Velocity eld plot showing the velocities between ore particles.
inside this simulated domain. The velocity of the ow within this path
is high due to the large diameter, small curvature, and effective connectivity of the pores along this path.
Fig. 6 represents the velocities along the outlet boundary of the
calculated region, which indicates that even for fairly complex geometries, the local velocity prole is nearly parabolic, with the faster velocity in the center of the pore throats, and slower along the solid
water interface.
is simulated by importing the transformed CT image into simulatorCOMSOL Multiphysics. The macro-scale ow of the whole dump is
also simulated by assuming the dump cross section to be trapezoid.
An optimized performance of a dump reactor may be obtained by
improving the hydrodynamic conditions in the bed which leads to a
more homogeneous distribution of the liquid phase. The information
of the ow behavior can be used in a variety of ways both to improve
one's understanding of the process and also to help make operational
decisions on optimizing recovery for a given scenario.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the nancial support for this
work provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(50934002 and 51104011), the Program for Changjiang Scholars and
Innovative Research Team in Universities (IRT0950), and the project
supported by State Key Laboratory of Comprehensive Utilization of
Low-Grade Refractory Gold Ores.
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