Desenvolvimento de um sistema automático para controle e monitoramento de barragens de rejeitos de minério

Abstract

The overflow and rupture of tailings containment dams generates numerous socioenvironmental impacts, as observed in the cases of the city of Mariana (2015), causing the death of 19 people, and Brumadinho (2019), causing the death of 270 people, both in the state of Minas Gerais. The accidents resulted in the degradation of landscapes, compromised water quality, silting up and alterations on the flows of watercourses, destruction of areas for reproduction of native fauna and flora and loss of biodiversity. For these and other reasons, it is important that this type of dam is better managed, which can only be done in a safe way, with the help of automation and instrumentation resources for real-time monitoring, making maintenance maneuvers safer, inspection and operational, in normal and critical conditions, in addition to speeding up and facilitating evacuations when in alarm circumstances. In this work, a project for the automation and instrumentation of ore tailings dams is proposed, with the intention of improving dam’s management, thus seeking to increase operational safety in normal operation and maintenance situations, and in critical situations, for example, when a large volume of tailings is dammed and/or when in adverse weather conditions, all of this, through the monitoring and/or control of some variables such as: dynamic level, flow and rainfall.