Marco Arrieta’s Post

Hi Folks, I’m looking forward to presenting the Geotechnical Risk Management and Documentation module at the upcoming Fundamentals of #Open Pit Slope Design course! This course, hosted by the Geotechnical Center of Excellence, at the University of Arizona, in collaboration with The Large Open Pit Project, will explore key concepts and best practices in Slope Analysis and Design. If you're interested, you can register here: https://cvent.me/EEgMd9. See you there 😁 ! Elk Valley Resources

Hi folks! Here again with some insights on dynamic friction and how these concepts apply to active open pit operations and high-end waste dumps. By simplifying the forces acting on a sliding mass using the sliding block model and Newton's Second Law, we can better understand the shear response at the active face of high-end waste dumps. This practical approach helps assess material stability and movement, offering critical insights for operational decisions in open pits. Check out the image below for a detailed breakdown 😎 ! #mining #operations #wastedumps #friction #energy #slopestability #practicalapplications

Hi Folks. The classical sliding block approach provides insights into the factors influencing runout distance in flow slides. By simplifying the dynamics of rapid mass movements, it treats the sliding mass as a rigid block on an inclined plane, focusing on energy loss due to friction while neglecting internal deformation. Originally developed to describe the motion of a rigid body center of mass, this model has been adapted to landslides and avalanches, incorporating various energy loss mechanisms. It remains a valuable tool for estimating runout, analyzing source height, and back-calculating velocities from historical events 😎 .

Hi Folks, Digital twins in geotechnical engineering can be a powerful tool for shifting from reactive to proactive approaches. The attached PPT, seeded by a couple of insightful papers from Gecko Geotechnics offers a concise overview. Enjoy the reading 😎!

Hi Folks, It was a really cool episode, having a conversation about Static Liquefaction and Entropy with Bryan Ulrich, really enjoyed it 🎉!

Hi Folks, Continuing our journey into static liquefaction in high-end waste dumps in the Canadian Rockies, let’s explore flow slides in coal waste dumps. Here’s a clear, logical explanation using entropy, energy, and statistics to show why extreme flow slides are unlikely from waste dump fluidization perspective. - For a waste dump with a volume of 1,000,000 m³ and a height of 100 meters, the required pore pressure, including basal shear resistance, is 2353 kPa. - The energy needed to destabilize such a waste dump is approximately 2,353,654 MJ. - This energy is roughly equivalent to the explosive power of about 140 tons of TNT, similar to a quite significan blast in open pit mining. - This energy represents a significant increase in entropy, moving from a stable (low entropy) state to a disordered (high entropy) state. - High entropy states are statistically more likely due to the second law of thermodynamics, which favors disorder. Achieving a low entropy state that leads to collapse is extremely unlikely because it requires very specific conditions (Static Liquefaction). However, if we consider factors like the shape of the path (e.g., a canyon) and a liquefiable foundation that reduces basal shear resistance, there are hundreds of combinations that could lead to extreme mobility (High Entropy). The second law of thermodynamics, a statistical law, tells us that high entropy (disorder) is more likely. Therefore, extreme runouts are more likely to occur from these high entropy states rather than from static liquefaction of the waste dump alone. In summary, following the second law of thermodynamics, the logic and numbers show that extreme runouts are more feasible through high entropy states, meaning the shape of the path and the liquefiable foundation (Disorder) rather than Static Liquefaction or fluidization of the body of the waste dump (Order) low entropy state.