Unsaturated soil properties of centrifuged oil sand fine tailings

John Owolagba, Shahid Azam

In the proceedings of: GeoMontréal 2013: 66th Canadian Geotechnical Conference; 11th joint with IAH-CNC

Session: Mining Geotechnics III

ABSTRACT: The main objective of this study was to determine the unsaturated soil properties of oil sand fine tailings after centrifugation, that is, at a solids content of 60% (void ratio = 1.5). The soil water characteristic curve plotted using the degree of saturation resulted in an air entry value of 1000 kPa. Likewise, the shrinkage curve showed a J-shaped pattern with most of the volume decrease occurring during normal shrinkage. With increasing suction, the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity decreased by several orders of magnitude from a saturated value of 2 x 10-10 m/s.

RÉSUMÉ: L'objectif principal de cette étude était de déterminer les propriétés des sols non saturés de sable bitumineux. Après centrifugation, c'est-à-dire pour une teneur en solides de 60% (taux de vide = 1,5). La courbe caractéristique de l'eau du sol tracée en utilisant le degré de saturation a donné une valeur d'entrée d'air de 1000 kPa. De même, la courbe de rétrécissement a la forme de la lettre « J », avec la plus diminution de volume survenant au cours du rétrécissement normal. Avec l'augmentation de succion, la conductivité hydraulique non saturée a diminué de plusieurs ordres de grandeur à partir de sa valeur saturée de 2 x 10-10 m/s.

Access this article:
Canadian Geotechnical Society members can access to this article, along with all other Canadian Geotechnical Conference proceedings, in the Member Area. Conference proceedings are also available in many libraries.

Cite this article:
John Owolagba; Shahid Azam (2013) Unsaturated soil properties of centrifuged oil sand fine tailings in GEO2013. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Geotechnical Society.

@article{GeoMon2013Paper548,author = John Owolagba; Shahid Azam,title = Unsaturated soil properties of centrifuged oil sand fine tailings,year = 2013}