Study on fractal feature and settling velocity of tailings floc

Abstract

Flocculent settling widely exists in various processes of tailings disposal.It bears significance for the accurate calculation of the flocculent settling velocity in engineering, such as tailings backfilling and surface disposal.This paper studied the structural characteristics of tailings flocs from the perspective of the fractal theory, and established the mathematical relationship between tailings particle size, geometry size of floc and fractal dimension.It analyzed the influence of buoyancy effect, reflux effect and viscosity effect on floc settling, and deduced a calculation formula of tailings flocculent settling velocity.This study carried out a tailings flocculent settling test observed the changes in geometric morphology of flocs by focused beam reflectance measurement technology(FBRM), and carried out validation analysis between testing data and model calculation value.The results showed that the settling velocity increased with the equivalent grain size of flocs, which could be divided into three stages, namely accelerated settling, uniform settling and compaction settling.The equivalent grain size of flocs of test tailings were 140~350 μm, and the settling velocity calculated by the formula were 1.3~2.0 mm/s when the fractal dimension was 2.25, which demonstrates significant correlation with the testing value, and had certain practical application value.

Keywords

• tailings
• flocculent settling
• floc
• fractal dimension
• settling velocity