Running head: Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 1

Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments

using Large-Scale Shake Table Testing

Daniel Duran Esmeral

The Pennsylvania State University

Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 2

Table of Contents

Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 3

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 4

Literature Review............................................................................................................................ 6

Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 13

Results ........................................................................................................................................... 18

Conclusion and Future Steps ........................................................................................................ 20

References ..................................................................................................................................... 21
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 3

Abstract

The United States currently has over 200 coal waste tailing dams classified with a high hazard

potential for failure by the Federal Emergency Management Agency rating system. Hazardness

potential classification is based on the probable loss of human life and the impacts it would cause

on economical, environmental, and lifeline interests; a high potential meaning that failure of the

dam will most probably cause loss of human life as a minimum. Many efforts have been made to

study the in-situ behavior of these impoundments’ stability in order to prevent further

consequences. The lack of investigation, however, on the geotechnical properties and flow

behavior of fine coal material after it has been placed makes this a challenging task. This project

will develop a valid representation of field behavior for coal slurry impoundments by using shake

table testing to assess their liquefaction potential under both static and dynamic loadings by

simulating seismic activity, followed by a numerical modeling set to support the previous results.

This procedure will develop a clear understanding between the coal slurry stabilization when

impounded and its response to sudden changes in loadings. Before conducting any shake table

testing, it was necessary to develop a depositional method which would represent actual field

conditions that would minimize segregation between the material’s particles, resulting in an

adequate void ratio, representative of field conditions. Taking into account that the material

examined was in a wet condition from its deposit, it was decided to test both Wet Pluviation and

Slurry Deposition as depositional methods that would depict the soil in its undisturbed conditions.

After many small-scale depositional tests, a mixture between the Slurry Deposition (SD) method Commented [SS1]: Combination of

and Wet Pluviation (WP) method was developed and found to be the best illustrative technique for

field conditions of the impoundments based on the materials’ base gradation, found to be very
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 4

similar to silty sand. If a valid exemplification of coal slurry impoundment stability is found Commented [SS2]: Sounds weird..rewrite

through the tools mentioned, this would be a groundbreaking discovery for the future that would Commented [SS3]: Avoid using these strong claims in
technical notes
allow state and regulatory agencies, as well as corporations in the mining industry, to preliminarily

assess the conditions of tailing dams and develop respective containment plans if necessary.

Introduction

Liquefaction is a process where a fully or partially saturated soil significantly loses its contractive

properties, that is, its stiffness and strength, and begins to behave like a liquid. This type of

behavior is of central interest to the field of civil engineering because of its potential catastrophic

consequences on structures. Many clear examples of these effects caught the attention of the public

eye in many infamous earthquakes throughout the world, which exalted the need to improve the

safety of foundations through preventive field studies that would predict soil behaviors under these

conditions. While there is an increasing research interest on preventing structure failure by

liquefaction, there is a lack of data relating coal waste tailings dams’ in situ behavioral properties

with their short- and long-term stability under varying conditions, including blasting conditions,

normal operational conditions after time of deposition, after loading from construction, and after

final reclamation. Coal tailings, or refuse, are the remaining materials in a coalmine after its

valuable fraction has been separated, and when deposited in a wet state on the dam, form coal Commented [SS4]: In ?!

slurry. Commented [SS5]: Sounds weird..

Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 5

According to a study of the United Nations Environmental Programme made by the International

Commission of Large Dams (ICOLD), on average, one to two major tailings dam accidents occur

per year. In the United States, according to the National Inventory of Dams, out of the more than

700 coal waste tailings dams in the country, 241 are classified by the FEMA as having high hazard

potentials, that is, almost 35% of the total are considered to be critically likely to affect human

lives and/or detrimental to economic, environmental, and lifeline losses. The Office of Surface

Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) recently has funded a laboratory study

examining the geotechnical properties and flow behaviors of coal refuse samples which include,

but not limit to, particle size distribution, specific gravity, Atterberg limits, permeability,

compressibility, shear strength, viscosity, etc., which have drawn important conclusions that serve

as initial footsteps and points of comparison for the results of this investigation under the same

objective. The laboratory results from OSMRE concluded that for coal refuse: (1) a higher initial Commented [SS6]: What study…if it’s a report you should
cite it here so reader can access it
water content was directly related to compressibility and indirectly related to consolidation rate;

consolidation strength in the coal refuse increases with the growth of settlement and time; (2) the

hydraulic conductivity when impounded is between 10-4 to 10-9 cm/s; (3) the shear strength of the

refuse generally is low; (4) viscosity of the material is sensitive to water content; coal slurry is a

“shear-thinning” non-Newtonian fluid and its viscosity decreases with rotational speed. Even

though these tests have provided valuable knowledge on coal refuse, they don’t portray a “final”

representation for fine coal refuse, which is more sensitive to disturbance (static and dynamic

loading), therefore, a necessary investigation for field properties is necessary to complement the

previous study and conclude a final behavioral analysis.

Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 6

Our research team gathered the samples to be analyzed from a coalmine company that provided

the refuse impoundments from different placement periods with a range from fresh to aged fine

refuse conditions. The research team focused firstly on the depositional method in which the coal

fine refuse was impounded in order to obtain a representative behavior of field conditions from

them. An emphasis was given to the form of deposition because of its importance in representing

an in-situ modeling of particle arrangement for the coal refuse. That is, a valid depositional method

will accurately represent the placement conditions for the coal waste so further geotechnical

properties can be concluded in the end of the shake table testing, that can convey to their short and

long-term stability. Two specific depositional methods, Wet Pluviation and Slurry Deposition,

were conducted in the laboratory taking into account that the field conditions for the samples

provided to the team were saturated. After further small-scale trial-and-error tests, a combination

for both of these methods was developed where density and silt content were controlled inputs for Commented [SS7]: Not true…we controlled the weight of
dry material
a targeted value of void ratio. These findings were fundamental in developing the next step of the

project which consists of placing a large-scale amount of coal refuse on the shake table located in

Penn State’s Civil Infrastructure Testing and Evaluation Laboratory. After its placement the coal

refuse will be left to settle and consolidate, after which several shaking tests will be conducted in

order to induce loadings that will lead to liquefaction of the material.

Literature Review

Predicting the field behavior of fine coal refuse impoundments is a complex topic to study, mostly

because of the difficulty at replicating placement conditions and adequate induced cyclic loading

exemplifying field conditions. Saturated sandy silts, which are the most resembling soil types
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 7

relating to fine coal waste, are really sensitive to sudden monotonic and cyclic loading. This

uncertainty in their behavior might explain the lack of concrete investigations to explain how these

impoundments react upon that type of loading.

Liquefaction is widely defined behavioral phenomenon affecting soils to behave in a liquid-state

manner. James et al. (p. 1587-1588, 2011) mentioned that “liquefaction can be broadly defined as

all phenomena involving excess deformations arising due to excess pore-water pressure generation

within saturated particle media such as soils and tailings, when subjected to static or dynamic shear

(deviatoric) loading under constrained drainage conditions”. In a more simplistic view,

liquefaction is basically a response of the soil to strain softening, a behavior where the soil loses

shear resistance, causing it to collapse and be subjected to a large deformation (Mantegh, 2006).

In extreme cases, the soil has been observed to lose its resistance constantly.

Previous researchers have tried to model the behavior of coal slurry or its similar silty sandy soil

in an attempt to describe the geotechnical properties of the samples during liquefaction. James et

al. (2011) conducted an experiment where a gold mine’s tailings dynamic response from Quebec

was measured by first preparing slurries from it, then letting them consolidate to vertical effective

stresses of 100-400 kPa, and finally subjecting them to cyclic direct simple shear testing with a

cyclic stress ratio ranging from 0.075 to 0.15. The parameter with which they compared the results

was based on the CRR (cyclic resistance ratio), which correlates directly to liquefaction resistance

, and it was found to not be affected by the effective consolidation stress mentioned. The
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 8

symmetrical and sinusoidal cyclic shear testing consisted in measuring vertical stress with shear

strain through computerized instrumentation and softwares, until the excess pore-water pressures

reached an equivalent point with the initial consolidation vertical effective stress. However, the

most impactful limitations of this experiment include a negligence in the possible effects of

layering (deposition of the material at site), aging of the tailings, and the fact that the material

encountered at the test pits was mostly homogeneous with little to no segregation (contrary to coal

refuse in impoundments). In his paper, the authors confess that the influence of the depositional

method of the natural soils along with its preparation in the laboratory have a fundamental

connotation in modeling liquefaction resistance.

Choosing an adequate depositional or reconstitutional method is of tremendous importance to this

research because it resembles the in-situ behavior for the sample to be tested, although a highly

challenging task when it comes to silty sands. Bradshaw et al. (2007) assessed this hardship by

explaining the inconveniency in retrieving undisturbed samples in good conditions either because

of engineering impossibility or high economical costs. He proceeds to explain how using

reconstituted samples is the best option at representing undisturbed samples, because even though

high quality samples can be retrieved through ground freezing, they can become highly disturbed

when transported back to the laboratory. For the deposition method, the authors conducted a bi-

comparison between Slurry Deposition and a Modified Moist Tamping method. In the former,

samples were prepared in a slurry by mixing water and dry soil to a dry content of 45% and then

it was put in a mold inside a triaxial cell covered with a membrane; the slurry was tamped to

remove air bubbles and later it was left to consolidate under a fixed vertical stress. In the latter, the
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 9

specimens were compacted to a specified density in layers, with uniform density throughout,

developing a relationship between dry density and drop hammer height. In the end of the

experiment, the Slurry Deposition method was found to be a little more accurate than the Modified

Moist Tamping method at preparing samples of nonplastic silt for cyclic and monotonic loading.

The problem with the MMT method, though, was that it was inaccurate for saturated samples.

Wood et al. (2008) attested the direct relationship between silt content and liquefaction resistance,

as well as recognizing the idea that loose silty sands are more prone to liquefaction. The authors’

main objective was to study the behavior of silty sand specimens under different reconstitution

techniques, making the silt content and absolute densities as the variables. The different techniques

studied were: dry funnel deposition, water sedimentation, slurry deposition, mixed dry deposition,

air pluviation, and moist tamping. The methods which could be used for loose saturated samples

were water sedimentation, slurry deposition, and moist tamping, but the tamping was identified as

cautious because of its likeliness to “liquefy upon saturation”. The test concluded that undrained

tests made on samples with a high relative density are unaffected by the depositional method

because the silt grains get packed into the voids.

There is an increasing need to address a solution for mine tailings through cyclic loadings. Most

recently, the popular approach has been to study the dynamic response of layered mine tailings

deposit through centrifuge tests. Two different investigations conducted by Antonaki et al. (2017)

consisted in conducting various series of these tests to examine self-weight consolidation, dynamic
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 10

response, liquefaction potential, and slope stability of mine tailings alone and with waste rock

mixtures. The authors exerted centrifugal acceleration to the sample by a certain amount in order

to reduce its consolidation time when placed, but with the limitations that the box used was rigid,

and that the materials tested had a water content of 59% (therefore not fully-saturated) with some

plasticity (it resembled more silty clay rather than sandy silt).

Most of the studies conducted to study liquefaction have been through non-representative tests of

field conditions. Della et al. (2011) studied the effects of confining pressure, relative density and

sample preparation methods on the shear strength of a type of sand through both drained and

undrained monotonic (static) triaxial compression tests. The samples had a known initial density

and they were subjected to known confining pressures as well. In this case, dry funnel pluviation

and wet deposition were the methods to be compared, but in wet deposition, the soil was placed in

layers which were tapped several times through strokes in order to be homogeneous. This method

of tapping the soil has been shown to densify it up to the point of being partially liquefied (Wood

et al., 2008). In addition to this experiment, Ural et al. (2014) also made great discoveries about

the behavior of nonplastic silty soils under cyclic loading, but again, tested for liquefaction

susceptibility of fine grained soils through lab test results. The researchers did find the importance

that an increase in clay and fine content are decrease the constant cyclic stress ratio in nonplastic

silty soils because of the slower excess pore pressure ratio buildup. Sivathalayan (1994), in his

doctoral thesis, also tested for the static and cyclic behavior of granular materials under triaxial

tests after being reconstituted by wet pluviation. This was done by experimenting with a variety
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 11

of void ratios and different confining stress levels, and it concluded that the “method of specimen

reconstitution has a profound influence on its undrained response” (p. ii).

Vibratory tables have been used in the past in an attempt to investigate the cyclic behavior of fines

or tailings. Pépin et al. (2012) used a rigid, instrumented box on top of a shake table as a model

for this behavior. When explaining their prototype, the researchers made it explicit that they were

aware that the box used didn’t exemplify in-situ conditions, mainly because of the rigid walls and

the small length to height ratio which, according to their literature review, should be an

approximate 10:1 (length:height). As for the instrumentation of the box, transducers were used to

measure the porewater pressure; LVDTs were used to measure the displacement of the soil when

shaken; steel plates to monitor the change in bearing capacity of the tailings when porewater

pressure increased; and colored sand at different depths to visualize the displacement of the sample

after dismantling the box. Another limitation of this experiment was that the specimen was

homogenized by mixing the material with water in a concrete mixer, placing different layers of

soil on the box every 2 days in order to allow the material to settle and stabilize.

Carraro et al. (2007) developed a method allowing to reconstitute homogeneous, saturated

specimens of sands containing fines with stress-strain responses resembling those of natural soil

deposits underwater. The focus of their research was based on limiting densities (void ratios) and

reconstituting specimens of sands with fines either containing plasticity or not. The paper explains

how ASTM D 4253 has valid standards to determine emin of saturated samples, but none of the
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 12

available standardized methods provide a procedure for determining emax in sands deposited

through water or slurry, mainly because they focus on recommending using oven-dried samples.

Pépin et al. developed a Slurry Deposition method based on an original proposed by Kuerbis and

Vaid in 1988, which basically consisted in forming a slurry by combining sand with fines content

after both of them had been previously weighed based on the desired final fines content of the

mixture (p. 4). By ASTM procedures (2000), silty sands were found to have lower void ratios as

the fines content in them increased. Finally, it was concluded that ASTM D 4254 – Standard Test

Methods for Minimum Index Density and Unit Weight of Soils and Calculation of Relative

Density – underestimates the emax of sands with nonplastic fines.

In his discussion replying a previous one made by Jefferies et al. on “Evaluation of static

liquefaction potential of silty sand slopes”, Lade (2012, p. 751) refers to the significant effects of

silt content on sand. He claims how a silty sand can be both weaker or stronger than clean sand

depending on its structure. That is, an increase in silt content located within the voids among larger

grains increases the overall strength of the silty sand and thus decreases the liquefaction potential

of the specimen. On the other hand, if the silt particles are located between the sand grains to

separate them, the specimen becomes weaker because forces will act to crush the silt particles or

displace them into the voids, resulting in an increase in pore pressure under undrained conditions.

He then proceeds to discuss how silt contents below 30% should be a concern for sandy silts, while

above 30% the particles are located both in the voids and between the sand grains, which make

them separate, forming a stronger soil. Lade talks about how the void ratio after consolidation may

be considered only if further analyses are made, and only for special purposes should it be used
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 13

for experiments. This concept, according to him, is due to the fact that preparing specimens at low

confining pressures with the goal of reaching a target void ratio in a given higher confining

pressure is a hard task to accomplish. The conclusion of the discussion is that to avoid this

difficulty, researchers predict the strength of the silty sand under undrained conditions from the

drained test results through void ratio after consolidation “as interpolated or extrapolated from

tests performed on specimens at four different initial void ratios”.

Methodology

The samples to be tested were gathered from a coal refuse impoundment in the state of

Pennsylvania. A depositional method for placement was developed, having in mind the complexity

of representing actual field conditions for the fine coal refuse samples in the laboratory. This

method consisted in a combination of the Wet Pluviation or Wet Sedimentation reconstitution

method with the Slurry Deposition method, considering that the samples to be tested were found

saturated in-situ. Initially, the design criteria for the depositional method was decided to be based

upon the void ratio e, that is, the ratio of the volume of voids to the total volume of the solids. The

way to check for variability and know if the target void ratio was reached was done by modifying

the dry particles of the samples when displaced. That is, adding more dry coal refuse to the mixture

would lower the void ratio if needed after calculating it in the end of the deposition method. The

final void ratio value could be checked and verified by measuring the final weight of the solid in

addition to the final volume of the specimen.

Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 14

To prepare the mixture, an equal amount of fine and coarse material were mixed for about two

minutes in a glass flask filled with water. In order to ensure proper mixing, the coal slurry was

stirred in the flask for about two minutes non-stop. Since the void ratio is the parameter to be

measured, the air voids were neglected by putting the flask on a boiling plate for about 15 minutes

in order to de-air the water in the mixture, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Samples used to de-air the water in the slurry

After that, a small-scale modified prototype of the laminar shear box was prepared in order to

measure the settlement of the samples after being placed by the deposition method to simulate the

actual conditions prior to it being placed on the actual large box. A feta cheese container was used

to simulate the box, and 6 holes were made to the box so drainage lines could be placed on them,

respectively, to get the water out of the saturated sample after it were to be placed. The drainage

lines were tested first by filling the container with clean water in order to check that no obstruction

would be present. After the setup was ready, the slurry was moved into a 1L graduated plastic

cylinder so we could measure the volume of slurry used for the experiment. A funnel was

connected to the opening of the cylinder as shown in Figure 2, and then the cylinder was flipped
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 15

over with the funnel so the outflow of the material in the feta cheese container could be somewhat

uniform. After the material was placed in the container, it was left for about 5 hours until all the

water had come out of the coal.

Figure 2.Deposition method: left) putting the funnel; right) placing the material in the container

Concurrent with the depositional method, a shake table testing was performed on clean sand in

order to develop a prior relationship of seismic performance of liquefiable ground using a laminar

shear box on top of a shake table. Clean sand was chosen as the soil in this test due to its

homogeinity in its particles with the same size. Air pluviation was used as a means of uniform

deposition of the sand by calibrating the method through its flow rate and drop height, as seen in

Figure 3.
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 16

Figure 3. Air Pluviation calibration method used on clean sand: left) Sand Hopper controlling the flow rate and size of sand
coming out; right) relative density of material depending on drop height (cm)

An actual picture of this setup can be seen in Figure 4. Figure 5 shows the instrumentation that

was placed on the laminar shear box, which includes 5 LVDTs, 5 accelerometers, and 7

piezometers. The purpose of the LVDT is to monitor the displacement of both the box so the shear

strength of the soil can be calculated based on the readings; the accelerometers measure the

acceleration of the soil; the piezometers, on the other hand, measure the pore pressure of the soil.

After the instrumentation was properly placed, an input motion was exerted on the shake table by

the actuator with an acceleration of 0.25g, 1 Hz, and 21 main cycles. An overview of the input

motion can be seen in Figure 6.

Figure 4. Actual image of shake table testing on the laminar shear box
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 17

Figure 5. Instrumentation within the laminar shear box

Figure 6. Input motion of actuator on shake table

The laminar shear box was used to address the boundary conditions and ensure that the soil governs

the response of the soil-box system, as shown in Figure 7.

Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 18

Figure 7. Schematic of laminar shear box: top) dimensions of the box; bottom) positioning of the box while in motion

Results

As previously stated, liquefaction occurs when the soil suffers from excess pore-water pressure,

losing shear resistance and thus being subjected to heavy deformation. Since these are cohesionless

and saturated soils, rapid loading occurs under undrained conditions, so the tendency for

densification causes excess pore pressure to increase and effective stresses to decrease. Equations

1 and 2 portray the relationship between stress, pore water pressure, and the ratio between excess

pore water pressure and initial effective vertical stress, known as ru, which is the indicator in this

experiment that liquefaction has happened.

Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 19

Equation 1:

𝜎′ = 𝜎 - µ
Equation 2:

∆µ
r=
u 𝜎 ′ 𝑣𝑜
An ru of 1 means that pore water pressure has equaled the initial effective vertical stress, i.e.,
Equation 3:

liquefaction. Figure 8 shows the pore water pressure generation during shaking at different depths,

measured through the piezometers installed prior to the test. The first 25 seconds, or the time that

the actuator exerts a push on the shake table, evidence that liquefaction has happened. Figure 9 is

a close-up of the liquefaction moment during the shaking, and the ru=1 shows that liquefaction was

clear and definitive throughout all of the soil at different depths.

Figure 8. Pore water pressure generation at different depths

Figure 9. Close-up of Liquefaction build-up section

Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 20

The LVDTs measured a maximum displacement of the soil of about 12 cm, and it gradually

decreases as depth increases, as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10. LVDT displacement readings

Conclusion and Future Steps

Overall, the shake table testing was proven to be a success by providing a relationship between

cyclic loading and liquefaction response. As for the final scope of the project, which considers the

dynamic response of fine coal refuse under liquefaction conditions, there is still a considerable

amount of work to be done. The deposition method, although proven to be a feasible approach that

can represent in-situ conditions of the coal impoundments on a small scale, still has to be tested

on a large-scale in the laminar shear box. The main concern is that coal waste, very similar to silty
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 21

sand, will segregate when placed on the laminar box thus not being representative of actual field

conditions. The deposition method gave void ratio results very similar to those targeted

beforehand, but still further time should be spent on it in order to ensure accuracy and precision.

After the shake table testing is performed on the coal slurry, a numerical modeling using advanced

constitutive model for soil liquefaction will have to be developed using a software. This will

provide the necessary understanding of the behavior of these impoundments by for example

demonstrating the typical areas of failure in them as well as their shear strains. Finally, more series

of shaking and Cone Penetration Tests (CPT) have to be conducted to investigate the effect of

shaking events, i.e. previous strain history, on the soil, as well as to determine aging effects.

References

Wood, F. M., Yamamuro, J. A., & Lade, P. V. (2008). Effect of depositional method on the

undrained response of silty sand. Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 45(11), 1525-1537.

Sivathayalan, S. (1994). Static, cyclic and post liquefaction simple shear response of

sands (Doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia).

Antonaki, N., Abdoun, T., & Sasanakul, I. (2017). Consolidation and Dynamic Response of a

Layered Mine Tailings Deposit in Centrifuge Tests. Geotechnical Testing Journal, 40(5),

746-761.

Antonaki, N., Abdoun, T., & Sasanakul, I. (2017). Centrifuge Tests on Comixing of Mine

Tailings and Waste Rock. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental

Engineering, 144(1), 04017099.

Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 22

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static liquefaction potential of silty sand slopes”. Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 49(6),

751-752.
Seismic Performance of Liquefiable Coal Slurry Impoundments 23

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