Geotechnical study of behaviour of high concentration settled ash slurry

Abstract

Electric power generation in India increases to several times in last fifty years the major chunk of power came from the coal based thermal power industries by burning of coal. As result huge quantities of coal ash is produced from the thermal industries. Only little percentage is used for the various productions like cement, bricks, mass concreting and road construction. Rest major portion are lying as a land fill called ash ponds being discharged in the slurry. Traditional ash slurry disposal system like lean slurry disposal pose lot many problems regarding to stability seepage etc. endangering to the stability of thermal power plant. Recently high concentrated ash disposal (HCSD) system is being introduced in some of the industries to overcome those problems. The behaviour of this HCSD disposal system and a comparison with lean slurry will enable a detailed insight to the thermal power industries. The aim of the project is to geotechnical study on the behaviour of high concentrated ash slurry. From Vedanta Jharsuguda Aluminium plant disturbed and undisturbed sample are collected, field test are also conducted. Experiment such as Modified Proctor test, Standard Proctor Test for determining MDD and OMC, Specific Gravity Test, in-situ density Test, permeability Test, along with Variations of Bulk density, water content and dry density with time at field are done in order to determine the geo-engineering properties high concentrated fly ash slurry.