Seepage Anisotropy of Heterogeneous Body

Ore dumps are heterogeneous bodies with anisotropic seepage characteristics because of the ore segregation. In an indoor experiment,a dump was constructed with three strata,where the horizontal and vertical seepage experi-ments were carried out. Horizontals flow are regarded as phreatic plan flows without penetration. Its seepage law sati-fies the Dupuit equation. With parallel lay seepage model,the equivalent seepage coefficient in the horizontal flow was obtained and was equivalent to the weighted mean of the seepage coefficient of each stratum. An unsaturated flow ap-peared in the vertical experiment,with a hydraulic gradient of 1. The vertical flow was equivalent to the seepage model that moved in vertical bedding; its equivalent seepage coefficient depended on the stratum with the minimum seepage coefficient. That the experiment showed clear anisotropy in a heterogeneous body was obvious with an anisotropic co-efficient between 63 and 155,which is 25 to 100 times larger than that of a homogeneous body.