Shear behvaiour of oil sand fine tailings in simple shear and triaxial devices

Oil Sand Fine Tailings are difficult to manage due to their poor consolidation characteristics. Once reaching about 35% solids content, they do not appreciably consolidate any further due to low hydraulic conductivity generated by the high dispersion of clay particles. Tailings at 35% solids do not possess any substantial strength and cannot be reclaimed. Regulations are therefore recently implemented that require oil sand operators to improve shear strength of deposited tailings to be at least 5kPa within a year after deposition. Many technologies have and currently being explored that use a polymer to drive clay particle flocculation and improve dewatering. However, most of the tracking of strength behaviour of polymer amended fine tailings has been using field vane or cone penetration testing. This thesis attempts to analyze strength behaviour by using element tests (simple shear and triaxial), the first such attempt in the public domain to the author’s knowledge.