News from 2021

During the afternoon of the 9^th of March 2018, a mobile slump occurred in an approximately 300 m section of the southern embankment of the Cadia Valley Operations (Cadia) Northern Tailings Storage Facility (NTSF), located in central-west New South Wales, Australia. The embankment slump resulted in a release of tailings from the NTSF, with the released tailings captured within the adjacent South Tailings Storage Facility (STSF).

GDS’ NEW Electromechanical Dynamic Cyclic Simple Shear Confined (EMDCSS-CON) is the premier device for simple shear testing. It is capable of carrying out dynamic cyclic tests ranging from small strain (0.005% shear strain amplitude) to large strain (10% shear strain amplitude), as well as a large range of extremely accurate quasi-static testing.

Testing in Constant Normal Stiffness (CNS) conditions have been widely used to better represent the effects of soil contraction/dilatation on the normal stress at the interface between the soil and the piles. A new (2021) upgrade to the control system and the firmware of GDS’ Electromechanical Dynamic Cyclic Simple Shear Device (EMDCSS) allows the apparatus to perform both static and dynamic simple shear tests in CNS conditions. 

GDS Instruments and Solotest (Local Agent) has assisted the geotechnical team at Vale (the world's largest producer of iron ore, pellets, and nickel) in setting up an advanced soils laboratory at their research premises in Belo Horizonte Brasil, with the purpose of enhancing their in-house capabilities for soil characterisation.