Cyclic shear behaviour of fibre-reinforced mine tailings

© 2015 Thomas Telford Ltd. In order to investigate techniques to improve the mechanical behaviour of mine tailings, an investigation of the cyclic shear response of fibre-reinforced mine tailings was carried out in the present study. Cyclic simple shear tests were conducted on fibre-reinforced and nonreinforced mine tailings. The tailings, produced from gold mining, were classified as sandy silt with traces of clay. Polypropylene fibres (zero and 0.5%) were added to the material. Under monotonic shear conditions, the addition of fibres unstiffens the material. Under shear stresscontrolled cyclic conditions, fibres improved the material shear response and produced a stiffer material. Under shear strain-controlled cyclic conditions, no improvement was observed as a result of addition of fibres and there was no effect on material stiffness. The agreement of the strength envelopes of both monotonic and cyclic stress paths, under different cyclic loading conditions, allows the use of the same strength parameters for mixtures analysed under different loading conditions.