Broken Hill, NSW
Background
The Rasp Mine processing plant is situated over a deep waste rock dump associated with historic mining operations on the south-eastern margin of Broken Hill.
The crushing mills were constructed on 1m thick reinforced concrete raft foundations excavated into the surface of the old fill.
The SAG mill was commissioned in April 2012 and, during May and June 2012, large quantities of water were expelled from the mills and flooded the areas surrounding the foundations. In August 2012, settlement was observed and monitoring began.
Observations on site suggested that excessive settlement of the SAG mill raft foundation was occurring.
Scope
A limited field investigation was carried out by CMW in September 2012, which comprised:
- 6 dynamically driven push tube boreholes to between 3.7m and 7.2m depth (BH2);
- 6 Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP) tests adjacent to the boreholes to depths of between 0.6m and 3.15m.
Five boreholes were undertaken at various locations around and as close as possible to the existing mill. The sixth borehole was undertaken at some distance from the mill. DCP tests were undertaken adjacent to the borehole positions to provide data relating to the soil density profiles.
Findings/Challenges
The investigation results showed:
- The observed settlement was attributed to the absorption of the excess mill discharge water into the uncontrolled fill fines, which were assessed to have a high voids content. This in turn led to a loss in shear strength and subsequent consolidation settlement of the uncontrolled fill;
- Remedial recommendations by CMW included appropriate management of surface water so as to immediately halt any further water ingress; undertake necessary structural repairs to continue operating the mill; continue settlement monitoring; and undertake grout injection to re-level the raft foundation when settlements reduced to an acceptable level.