Stability Analysis of the Impoundment of Ash

An impoundment is an engineering construction used for the safe deposition of unexploitable waste from industrial and mining facilities. In terms of the legislative requirements of the Slovak Republic, a “Measurements Project” must be developed for each impoundment. In this document the prerequisites for the safe operation of an impoundment, the limit and critical values of the monitored phenomena and the facts influencing the safety of the impoundment and the area endangered by such a site are also defined. The safety and stability of an impoundment are verified according to a ”Measurements Project” by considering stability at regular time intervals. This contribution presents, in the form of a parametric study, a stability analysis of an ash impoundment. The stability analysis provides an example of the utilization of an information database of the results of the regular monitoring of the geotechnical properties of the materials forming the impoundment´s body and the surrounding rock mass. The stability of the impoundment is expressed for a recent state - without a continuous water level in its body and, at the same time, for a hypothetical limit and critical water level according to the valid “Handling Regulations“.