Analysis of the Dynamic Stability of Tailing Dams: An Experimental Study on the Dynamic Characteristics of Tailing Silt
, Lei Zhao 3 and Xiaoshuang Li 4
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors presented an experimental study of the dynamic properties of tailing silts. Dynamic triaxial tests were performed using samples of various conditions. The authors may consider the following comments/questions for further improvements.
1. Figure 4 was never mentioned in the manuscript.
2. The tests consist of samples of two different densities with marginal difference. It is not convincing to draw conclusions about the density effect, such as line 280-282.
Author Response
Thank you very much for all the suggestions of the reviewer on this paper. I have revised it according to all your suggestions. The revised content has been explained in detail below. And the revised manuscript has been added to the attachment (where the revised part is marked in red)
1. Figure 4 was never mentioned in the manuscript.
Revision explanation:
In the manuscript, lines 243-245 have been added to Figure 4 and its related instructions: “Figure 4 shows the cumulative pore water pressure growth curve of tailing silt under the same CSR and different confining pressures.”
2. The tests consist of samples of two different densities with marginal difference. It is not convincing to draw conclusions about the density effect, such as line 280-282.
Revision explanation:
â‘ Revised line 274-276 in the manuscript, the original sentence mentioned by different density test to draw relevant conclusions is not rigorous, so change to“It can be seen from Figure 5 that the pore pressure growth trend of tailing silt under two different density conditions in this experiment is similar.”
â‘¡The test conclusion in lines 276-283 is re-described to ensure the rigor of the conclusion, so it is modified as: “As shown in Figure 6, under higher density, with the increase of confining pressure, the vibration times required for the liquefaction of the sample show a trend of decreasing first and then increasing, and the vibration times required for the liquefaction of the sample are the lowest at , and the vibration times are 220 times. Therefore, the dynamic strength of the sample also has a critical state at higher density, and the vibration times corresponding to different test conditions in Figure 6 show that the dynamic strength increases significantly with the increase of sample density.”
â‘¢Line 292-306 in the manuscript is a detailed description of the principle of the critical phenomenon of the dynamic strength of the sample, and it is also an extension of the previous article (Line 243-267).
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript submitted for review "Analysis of the dynamic stability of tailing dams: An experimental study on the dynamic characteristics of tailing silt" contains interesting and important studies and analyzes on tailing dams.
Before publication, it is proposed to introduce minor changes in order to improve the readability of the work:
- The introduction is too extensive and contains a small amount of literature review,
- in the introduction, the purpose of the research should be clearly defined,
- the content in the research methodology chapter should be arranged in the following order: test object, working (test) conditions, description of the preparation of the test object, measuring tools and devices,
- the explanations of the ingredients contained in the formulas should be written more clearly. Writing in one line prevents correct interpretation of the data.
In my opinion, the article can be published after making the necessary corrections.
Author Response
Thank you very much for all the suggestions of the reviewer on this paper. I have revised it according to all your suggestions. The revised content has been explained in detail below. And the revised manuscript has been added to the attachment (where the revised part is marked in red)
1. The introduction is too extensive and contains a small amount of literature review.
Revision explanation:
â‘ Seven overly broad references in the manuscript have been deleted.
â‘¡The existing references in the manuscript are modified to highlight the research purpose: “Gao considers the influence of effective confining pressure and dynamic stress ratio on the dynamic strength of the sample through the indoor dynamic triaxial test, it is found that under the same dynamic stress ratio, the liquefaction resistance of calcareous sand samples is obviously enhanced by increasing confining pressure.”(Line 85)
â‘¢References closely related to the research content of manuscripts were added to highlight the research purpose and make a statement: “Wang studied the influence of dynamic stress ratio and confining pressure on the dynamic characteristics of saturated gravel sand, it was found that the cumulative strain and pore water pressure of the samples were different under the conditions of increasing the dynamic stress ratio under the same confining pressure and increasing the confining pressure under the same dynamic shear stress ratio.” “Through the dynamic test of silty clay, Jie combined the factors such as confining pressure, dynamic stress, frequency and consolidation ratio, and analyzed the influence of various factors and their coupling on the cumulative plastic strain of the sample.” “Liu studied the influence of multiple factors on the dynamic strength of gravel soil through dynamic triaxial test, and explored the influence of various factors on the deformation of the dynamic strength of the sample, it was found that the plastic strain increased with the increase of initial static deviatoric stress and dynamic stress, and decreased with the increase of confining pressure, load frequency and consolidation ratio.”
â‘£Make corresponding modifications in the references.
2. In the introduction, the purpose of the research should be clearly defined.
Revision explanation:
In the introduction, lines 102-109 have been modified to highlight the purpose of the study and modified as: “Most of the above research results are aimed at sandy soil with coarser particle size, while there are relatively few studies on soil particles with finer particle size, and most tests only consider the influence of single factor on the dynamic strength of soil, without considering the interaction between factors. In order to improve the dynamic stability of tailings pond, it is necessary to clarify the influence of different factors on the dynamic strength of tailings material under cyclic load.”
3. The content in the research methodology chapter should be arranged in the following order: test object, working (test) conditions, description of the preparation of the test object, measuring tools and devices.
Revision explanation:
Combined with the research content of this paper, the content of Section 2 “Content and methods of testing” in the manuscript has been supplemented to enhance the logic of the article, and the subheading of the manuscript has been modified as : “Test soil sample” “Test apparatus” “Preparation of samples” “Test scheme”.(line 117-149)
4. The explanations of the ingredients contained in the formulas should be written more clearly. Writing in one line prevents correct interpretation of the data.
Revision explanation:
This problem has been changed in line 324-328 and line 411-414.
â‘ line 324-328: A1, A2, c, v1, v2, h1, and h2 are the model parameters, where A1 represents the initial value of the function development, A2 represents the final value of the function, h1 represents the slope of the rapid growth stage of pore pressure, and h2 represents the slope of the instantaneous failure stage, and c, v1, v2 represent other parameters of the fitting function.
â‘¡line 411-414: Here, represents the dynamic strain corresponding to point A, represents the dynamic stress corresponding to point A, represents the dynamic strain corresponding to point B, and represents the dynamic stress corresponding to point B.
Reviewer 3 Report
Overview and general recommendation for the journal:
The authors investigate the dynamic characteristics of tailing silt using a series of dynamic triaxial tests. Their objective is to evaluate the growth of the hysteresis curve, the development of pore pressure, and the energy dissipation law of tailing silt. Several points need to be improved in the manuscript.
1. Line 51: What results did these authors find?
2. Lines 79-81: I would suggest changing the sentences to past tense to preserve the structure of the introduction.
3. Lines 104-107: The problem statement should be reviewed. In the current form, it appears that the previous studies have no contribution to the literature. Explain what single variable experiments would be.
4. Lines 109-111: The authors introduce a "B value" without any prior reference. Do the authors already place their research limitations in the introduction? This is somewhat unusual.
5. Line 121: What hardware and software are you using? Describe Figure 1.
6. Line 136: uniformity was good based on what benchmark/standard?
7. Line 144: Explain that 2 samples were tested.
8. Line 155: explain the variables of the CSR index.
9. Line 185: Is section 3.1 results of a new teoretical framework developed by the authors?
10. Line 191: U or mu? Check notation (line 219). Fix throughout the article.
11. Line 233: section 3.2 should be analyzed according to results found in the literature.
12. Lines 238-240: hard to understand. Rewrite.
13. Line 245: Figure 4 is not cited or discussed.
14. Line 337: How could this model be used for multiple densities? Provide a numerical example for a density other than the one used in your study.
15. Line 428: How important is the area of the dynamic stress-strain hysteresis curve?
16. Line 483: typo.
I hope the above comments and suggestions are helpful to the authors.
Author Response
Thank you very much for all the suggestions of the reviewer on this paper. I have revised it according to all your suggestions. The revised content has been explained in detail below. And the revised manuscript has been added to the attachment (where the revised part is marked in red)
1. Line 51: What results did these authors find?
Revision explanation:
Line 50-51: The literature omitted in this part is other related research results in this research field. In order to make the paper more rigorous, the references cited in this section have been deleted or described in detail later.
2. Lines 79-81: I would suggest changing the sentences to past tense to preserve the structure of the introduction.
Revision explanation:
This part has been modified to the past in line 67.
3. Lines 104-107: The problem statement should be reviewed. In the current form, it appears that the previous studies have no contribution to the literature. Explain what single variable experiments would be.
Revision explanation:
â‘ Firstly, the reference part of the whole literature is modified in the manuscript, and the line 102-109 in the introduction is modified as a whole, which clarifies the contribution and correlation of the relevant literature to this experiment.
â‘¡line 104-106, the concept of single factor experiment is added : “for example, only the dynamic stress or confining pressure applied to the specimen is changed during the test without considering the interaction between the factors.”
4. Lines 109-111: The authors introduce a "B value" without any prior reference. Do the authors already place their research limitations in the introduction? This is somewhat unusual.
Revision explanation:
â‘ line 152-155: The value of B here only reflects the saturation degree of the sample after the saturation stage, which has been modified as: “After the back pressure stage, the density of the saturated sample should be tested to ensure that the saturation effect of each sample is good.”
â‘¡This part is adjusted to the appropriate position in the paper, and the context is modified accordingly (line 154-155).
5. Line 121: What hardware and software are you using? Describe Figure 1.
Revision explanation:
Lines 132-137: The hardware and software parts of the test instrument are described in detail : “This test uses KTL-DYN10 dynamic triaxial apparatus, as shown in Figure 2. The test instrument is mainly composed of hardware system and software system. The hardware system mainly includes: data acquisition equipment, pressure chamber, backpressure controller, eight-channel dynamic controller, axial loading equipment and dynamic confining pressure controller. And the software system mainly includes GeoSmartLab program software matched with the instrument.”
6. Line 136: uniformity was good based on what benchmark/standard?
Revision explanation:
â‘ According to the soil mechanics textbooks (Li, G.X., Zhang, B.Y., Yu, Y.Z., 2013. Soil Mechanics, Tsinghua University Press, Beijing), the soil when Cu > 5 is called uneven soil, and the soil when 1 < Cc < 3 indicates that the gradation curve is discontinuous.
â‘¡The expression of this part of the sentence is wrong, and corrected in line 125-127 : “The analysis revealed that the particle size distribution of the sample was relatively concentrated, and particle distribution is not uniform, grading curve is not continuous.”
7. Line 144: Explain that 2 samples were tested.
Revision explanation:
â‘ It is obtained from the survey data of the tailings reservoir, and modified in line 148.
â‘¡Most of the tailings particles are filled by hydraulic filling when they are discharged into the tailings reservoir, which leads to the different density of tailings in different parts of the dam. And the density of tailings particles in some tailings reservoirs is mostly similar to this value, and the conclusion has more general engineering significance.
8. Line 155: explain the variables of the CSR index.
Revision explanation:
â‘ Line 160-164, in the manuscript is modified to supplement the physical meaning of the CSR value on the dynamic strength of the sample: “The molecules and denominators in the dynamic stress ratio represent the dynamic stress and the confining pressure respectively, and their values directly reflect the dynamic strength of the sample, which is of great significance for determining the anti-liquefaction strength of tailings under different conditions.”
â‘¡Line 164-165, the context is modified accordingly: “Therefore, the designed test scheme is shown in Table 1 to further study the interaction between different factors under the same CSR conditions.”
9. Line 185: Is section 3.1 results of a new teoretical framework developed by the authors?
Revision explanation:
â‘ The function model is visible in the soil mechanics textbook(Li, G.X., Zhang, B.Y., Yu, Y.Z., 2013. Soil Mechanics, Tsinghua University Press, Beijing), so the explanation of the theoretical source is added in line 184.
â‘¡In the analysis (line 197-225) of the function model, the results are derived by the author, and the experimental results are explained and the principle is analyzed by using the conclusions derived above.
10. Line 191: U or mu? Check notation (line 219). Fix throughout the article.
Revision explanation:
The format of the symbol has been modified, and the format of all the symbols in the manuscript has been modified.
11. Line 233: section 3.2 should be analyzed according to results found in the literature.
Revision explanation:
â‘ The corresponding references in the introduction have been deleted and modified, and the references directly related to the research content have been added, which makes the relevant literature more targeted to the research content.
â‘¡The line 102-109 in the introduction is modified to make the reference more corresponding to the research content and enhance the logic of the manuscript.
12. Lines 238-240: hard to understand. Rewrite.
Revision explanation:
Line 231-233, This part has been rewritten: “However, if the test dynamic stress and consolidation confining pressure are increased at the same time, the influence on the dynamic strength of the sample is still unclear.”
13. Line 245: Figure 4 is not cited or discussed.
Revision explanation:
In the manuscript, lines 243-245 have been added to Figure 4 and its related instructions: “Figure 4 shows the cumulative pore water pressure growth curve of tailing silt under the same CSR and different confining pressures.”
14. Line 337: How could this model be used for multiple densities? Provide a numerical example for a density other than the one used in your study.
Revision explanation:
â‘ Under the same other conditions, dynamic tests were carried out on samples with other densities, and subsequent analysis and verification were carried out. It was found that the pore pressure growth curve of the sample was also applicable to the function. Therefore, the study found that the function conforms to the pore pressure development curve under various density conditions, making the conclusion more rigorous.
â‘¡A new set of experiments has been added to the manuscript (line 175), and the corresponding charts have been replaced in the manuscript (line 343), and the content of the article has been modified accordingly.
15. Line 428: How important is the area of the dynamic stress-strain hysteresis curve?
Revision explanation:
â‘ Line 391-394, the importance of analyzing the area of hysteresis curve is supplemented in line xx of the manuscript : “The area enclosed by the hysteresis curves reflect the energy dissipated by the sample under dynamic cycle. Under dynamic load, the energy dissipated by the sample is closely related to the strain failure of the sample and the liquefaction mechanism of the sample.”
â‘¡The relevant conclusions are explained in detail from line 426 to line 443.
16. Line 483: typo.
Revision explanation:
Modify the error and check the full text of the manuscript.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Accept. I have no further comments.
