Growth in production rate in large-scale metallic mines has resulted in an increasing demand for larger tailings disposal capacity. In the case of mines located in mountainous areas frequently require design unprecedented high tailings dams closing narrow valleys like in Chile and Peru.
This paper presents a comparison of the dynamic response of sand tailings dams considering the effects of valley shape. The analysis is performed with tridimensional and bidimensional numerical modeling, consider four different valley shape, actual seismic records of Chilean earthquakes and typical geotechnical parameter for tailing sands. The results are oriented to determining the influence of valley shape in local deformations and crest amplification of seismic acceleration.