Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Influence of burial conditions on the seepage characteristics of uranium bearing loose sandstone

  • Quan Jiang (School of Resources and Safety Engineering, Central South University) ;
  • Mingtao Jia (School of Resources and Safety Engineering, Central South University) ;
  • Yihan Yang (China Nuclear Inner Mongolia Mining Co., Ltd) ;
  • Qi Xu (China Nuclear Inner Mongolia Mining Co., Ltd) ;
  • Chuanfei Zhang (China Nuclear Inner Mongolia Mining Co., Ltd) ;
  • Xiangxue Zhang (China Nuclear Inner Mongolia Mining Co., Ltd) ;
  • Meifang Chen (Beijing Research Institute of Chemical Engineering Metallurgy)
  • Received : 2023.09.23
  • Accepted : 2023.11.21
  • Published : 2024.04.25
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Abstract

To investigate the influence of different burial conditions on the seepage characteristics of loose sandstone in the leaching mining of sandstone uranium ore, this study applied different ground pressures and water pressures to rock samples at different burial depths to alter the rock's seepage characteristics. The permeability, pore distribution, and particle distribution characteristic parameters were determined, and the results showed that at the same burial depth, ground pressure had a greater effect on the reduction in permeability than water pressure. The patterns and mechanisms are as follows: under the influence of ground pressure, increasing the burial depth compresses the pores in the rock samples, decreases the proportion of effective permeable pores, and causes particle fragmentation, which blocks pore channels, resulting in a decrease in permeability. Under the influence of water pressure, increasing the burial depth expands the pores but also causes hard clay particles to decompose and block pore channels. As the burial depth increases, the particles eventually decompose completely, and the permeability initially decreases and then increases. In this experiment, the relationships between permeability and the proportion of pores larger than 0.15 ㎛ and the proportion of particles smaller than 59 ㎛ were found to be the most significant.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

The study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Key Program). Subject No: 52,034,001, and the Independent Scientific Research Project of China Nuclear Inner Mongolia Mining Co., Ltd. Subject No: 4Y00-FW-GKJT-23-0507.

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