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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Oxford, Mississippi » National Sedimentation Laboratory » Watershed Physical Processes Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #303199
Title: Laboratory experiments on dam-break flow of water-sediment mixtures

Author
item OZEREN, YAVUZ - University Of Mississippi
item ALEXIO, RUI - University Of Mississippi
item ALTINAKAR, ALTINAKAR - University Of Mississippi
item Wren, Daniel

Submitted to: Meeting Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/5/2014
Publication Date: 3/5/2014
Citation: Ozeren, Y., Rui, A., Altinakar, M., and Wren, D. G. Laboratory experiments on dam-break flow of water-sediment mixtures. River Flow 2014, International Conference on Fluvial Hydraulics, Lausanne, Switzerland, September 3-5, 2014.

Interpretive Summary: Tailings dams are built to impound mining waste, also called tailings, which consists of a mixture of fine-sized sediments and water contaminated with some hazardous chemicals used for extracting the ore by leaching. Flow with water and particles mixed follows different physical laws from water flow, and there is a need for research into this phenomenon. Dam break experiments happen very quickly, so specialized methods of data collection and analysis are needed. Here, high speed cameras and laser particle tracking are used to study the behavior of water a particles released suddenly from a tank by the removal of a gate. Several fractions of water/sediment mixture were tested. The main focus of this paper is on the how the amount of solid material affected the characteristics of the flow wave after the gate was released.

Technical Abstract: Dams induce sedimentation and store significant amounts of sediment as they age; therefore, dam failures often involve the release of sediment-laden water to the downstream floodplain. In particular, tailings dams, which are constructed to impound mining wastes, can cause devastating damage when they fail. This paper presents an experimental study of the release of a water and sediment mixture due to a dam failure. One objective of the study was to investigate the hydrodynamics of tailings dam failure and generate datasets that can be used to verify and validate numerical models. The experimental setup consists of a channelized reservoir and an open floodplain, which are separated by a sliding gate. Various combinations of water and sediment depth were tested. PET pellets were used to simulate sediments. Transient flow characteristics, such as water-sediment mixture discharge, wave front velocity, free surface evolution, and failure geometry were measured by means of high-speed cameras and acoustic sensors. In the upstream reservoir, a particle tracking technique was used to resolve failure planes in the sediment layer. A pattern projection technique was used to measure the time-varying mixture depth on the downstream floodplain. Key hydrodynamic and morphological features of the transient flow of the water-sediment mixture created by a dam-break are presented.