Title: Evaluation of incipient motion for sediment transport of mining waste rock using critical shear stress analysis

Authors: Dane Morris; Keith Strevett

Addresses: US Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District, Missouri River Water Quality Program, 601 E. 12th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106, USA ' School of Civil Engineering, University of Oklahoma, 202 West Boyd St., Room 334, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA

Abstract: There have been concerns that excess sediment load of mining waste rock, also known as chat, into nearby alluvial streams with which have increased flooding risks due to the aggradation and destabilisation of the channel. The goal of this project was to gain a better understanding of the conditions required for fluvial transport and assess the frequency at which those conditions were met. Before this goal could be achieved at field-scale, and the initial objective of determining the critical shear stress required for initiation of fluvial transport of chat, was identified. To determine the critical shear stress required for initiation of transport, a bench-scale laboratory experiment was done in a hydraulic flume with chat collected from an impacted stream viz., Tar Creek, Oklahoma, USA. The empirical critical shear stress required for transport was slightly less than values suggested for general use of sediment transport. This difference is shown to be due to angular characteristics of the chat. The impact of this study and determination of critical shear stress enables the development and calibration of hydraulic and sediment transport modelling of cherty mining waste rock.

Keywords: fluvial transport; sediment transport; critical shear stress; incipient motion; mining waste rock; chat transport; shear stress analysis; alluvial streams; flooding risks; floods; modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHST.2015.070102

International Journal of Hydrology Science and Technology, 2015 Vol.5 No.2, pp.119 - 132

Received: 10 Sep 2014
Accepted: 23 Apr 2015
Published online: 26 Jun 2015 *

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