Invited Lecture: Tailings dam post-failure flow dynamics: analysis of the the rheological behaviour

With the intent to investigate the complex rheological behaviour of tailings flows released following a dam failure, a new version of the one-phase continuum-mechanics-based RASH3D code has been implemented and applied to simulate the 1985 Stava (Italy) tailings dam collapse. Four alternative rheologies were tried: Frictional, Bingham, Turbulent and Voellmy. The two-parameter Voellmy rheology gave the best results in terms of debris runout, velocity and super-elevation on banks and of minimum changes of rheological values along the runout path.