Migration rules and risk of disaster of discharged tailings flow under typical dam failure pattern

This study constructed a model of tailings pond combining the surrounding landform to analyze the migration time course and mechanical evolution rules of discharged tailings flow under the typical dam failure pattern. The results indicate that, the discharged tailings flowed at a relatively high flow velocity at about 500s after dam failure (breach of 110m), while it was relatively high after 500s under the breach of 50m condition. Meanwhile, the flow velocity exhibited a similar time variation rule to impact force, it sharply increased to the peak in the early stage and later gradually decreased. In the case of total break (breach of 205m), the greatest flow depth was observed in the region near the dam toe, while the flow depth and submerged range were greater in the downstream under the semi-break condition. The upstream region A and downstream region C showed a relatively high risk of dam failure-induced disaster.