The development of mines creates substantial amounts of soil-rock mixture (S-RM) waste that is accumulated as waste dumps. These dumps pose significant safety hazards that require management. In this study, S-RM was sampled from a waste dump at a copper mine in Jiangxi Province, China. Consolidated-undrained triaxial tests were conducted on four gradations of S-RM specimens. Numerical simulations of dump slope stability were performed by considering factors such as groundwater level, rainfall intensity, and root reinforcement depth. The findings are as follows: (1) cohesion and friction angle are sensitive to rock content; (2) the power-law model outperforms the Duncan-Chang model in fitting triaxial data; (3) the stability of the dump deteriorates as the groundwater level gets shallower; (4) the factors of safety decrease with increasing rainfall duration and intensity with an approximately exponential decay pattern; (5) vegetation root reinforcement improves slope stability; however, extreme rainfall can trigger perched water accumulation, which can compromise stability. These findings provide valuable indicators that can assist in managing the safety hazard posed by such waste dumps.
Zhang et al. (2026) studied this question.