Author(s)

Changhong Li, Dayu Long, Yueqi Shi and You Zhou

Corresponding Author

Dayu Long

ABSTRACT

Tailings sand is an artificial three-phase bulk medium after beneficiation. It is difficult to reflect its true three-dimensional micro structure through physical and mechanical tests and numerical simulations. In this paper, based on micro-CT, the high-resolution scanning of tailings sand samples is used to obtain two-dimensional slices with a resolution of 6.16μm. The three-dimensional reconstruction of the two-dimensional slice was visualized by the gray threshold method of Avizo 3D visualization software, and the three-dimensional pore structure of the tailings sand sample was quantified and characterized. The results show that the tailings sand sample has rich pore development and good pore connectivity. The porosity of the 1000-layer two-dimensional section of the tailings sand sample changes obviously, but the porosity shows an increasing trend. The variation range is from 7.01% to 12.03%. The average value is 9.74%; the pore distribution of the tailings sand sample is mainly small pores of 0-20μm, supplemented by 20-80μm pores, and the smallest number of pores larger than 80μm.

KEYWORDS

Micro-CT, tailings sand, digital image, three-dimensional reconstruction, pore structure