With a tailings pond in Lesser Khingan Mountains region as an example, experiments were carried out on tailings embankment respectively by upstream construction with discharged wet metallic tailings, by filling a pond with metallic tailings, and by construction with overflow and underflow of tailings separately from cyclone. It is shown that the embankment construction with overflow and underflow separately from cyclone is superior over other two methods based on comparison. It can not only effectively improve consolidation of the tailings in front of the embankment through drainage, prolong the length of dry beach and increase the strength of the tailings in front of the embankment, but also create a wide sloping sediment, keep the embankment within the freeboard, improve the seepage condition of the dam body, as well as increase the bearing capacity of beach surface and the efficiency of embankment construction. By improving the cycloning process, a scheme including constructing embankment during non-winter seasons and discharging tailings in winter to build a wide sub-dam is proposed, which can solve the previously existing problems to a certain extent, such as sediment beach with high water content and low bearing capacity, as well as inability to build sub-dam with tailings sand. However, both the utilizing rate of coarse sand, the width of sub-dam of high-grade tailings pond and development of frozen soil still need to improve. Finally, it is found that the embankment construction by adopting technique of building wider sub-dam with underflow and overflow of tailings from cyclone combined with geofariform method can effectively resolve the existing problems for tailings dam. Thus, this technique can be promoted as an effective embankment construction scheme with fine-grained tailings in regions with high altitude and cold weather.

regions with high altitude and cold weather  /  tailings pond  /  embankment construction  /  fine grained tailings  /  dam construction by filling pond  /  sub-dam with wide body  /  embankment with overflow and underflow from cyclone