This paper discusses the durability's influence on the geotechnical behavior of the West Slope's rocks of Pau Branco Mine, this being the mining site on Vallourec & Mannesman (V) property, located at Serra da Moeda, Brumadinho, Minas Gerais. At the site, the occurrence of acute fracturing and folding of the rocks, plus the effects of the local weather conditions, were responsible for forming low mechanical strength and high alteration grade rocks, favoring destabilization mechanisms. The influence that durability has on the phyllite's physical properties was evaluated through slake durability tests with different alteration grade and strength phyllites. Through the same tests, an attempt was made to identify the existence of an association between the durability and the failure mode in phyllite's slopes. This correlation was important to be found because it could be used as an expeditious indicative of the failure mechanism and the strength of the lithologies that exist in the slope studied. Furthermore, these studies included kinematic analysis to identify conditions for the occurrence of failures caused by discontinuities and to compare these failures to the ones observed at the mining site. For this purpose, Rocsciense's software Dips 5.0 was used.
Slake durability index; failure mechanisms; strength parameters
