SENSOR DDS® technology applied to Storm pond in gold mine
A Storm Pond is a pond used for the collection of rainwater at mining plants or other industrial zones. Usually the water contains some amount of the hazardous chemicals or other liquid and needs to be stored properly.
For that reason, waterproof geomembrane is installed at these ponds to prevent underground pollution. Integrity of such geomembrane must be tested after its installation. Geomembrane damage caused by transport or its installation process will be detected and fixed to assure 100% geomembrane waterproofing.
SENSOR DDS® MIT Arc Testing at Storm pond at Asian gold mine
General project info:
- Area tested was 72 000m²
- Two layers of HDPE 1.5mm geomembrane installed
- Sensor leak detection geotextile with geogrid was installed between geomembranes
- Compacted clay as subgrade
- We used SENSOR DDS® MIT Arc Tester to test geomembrane integrity of whole surface of the Storm pond
At this project we located 67 leaks in the secondary geomembrane and 45 leaks in the primary geomembrane. Whole survey was conducted during the nights due to high daily temperatures. Such low visibility would cause problems in commonly water based detection methods such as water puddle or water lance but thanks to our reliable audio-visual alarm we were able to detect and locate all holes including pinholes.
The daily average productivity was 8 500m² per operator per day. We deployed 2 operators so the whole surface of each geomembrane was completed in 4-5 days. The high number of the leaks were identified as cuts mostly caused by installation tools. Damaged extrusion welds and hot wedged welds were other common faults of the geomembrane at this project.
