Earthquake response of external mine overburden dumps: a micromechanical approach

The huge piles of overburden comprising of fragmented rocks and loose soil are dumped within the leasehold area causing serious environmental problems in view of occasional sliding and the risks of miner’s life. The continuum-based numerical approach ignores the discrete nature of the geo-materials found in external overburden dump, in terms of both composition and interactions. Engineering mechanics in the discontinuum regime has been utilized to overcome the mentioned limitations. The distinct element method is employed to characterize the overburden dump geometry and the associated physical behaviour of the dump mass for seismic loads. The study discussed about the earthquake vibration responses and assessed the internal dynamics of the dump mass system. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011