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Every day 100’s of thousands of tonne of mine tailings are conventionally discharged to tailing storage facilities. The soil-water characteristic curve (herein referred to as the tailings-water characteristic curve) is an important parameter for understanding the dewatering behaviour of mine tailings, which has important consequences for the geotechnical and geo-environmental performance of tailings stacks deposited at relatively high initial densities and / or dry climate conditions. In this thesis, the tailings water characteristic curve (TWCC) of two different kinds of tailings has been investigated: tailings from a gold mine and mature fine tailings from an oil sands operation. The sensitivity of the TWCC to the initial state of tailings at the start of the TWCC test is investigated. This initial state comprises initial water content, settling time, initial loading or compaction, use of a polymer in sample preparation, and thickness of the sample. Experimental tests on two different kinds of mine tailings showed: 1. Varying the thickness of the sample between 10 and 30 mm did not affect the SWCC. Thickness influenced only the equilibrium time. 2. The use of an anionic polymer significantly decreased the air-entry value of the oil sands tailings. 3. Increasing the initial water content of gold tailings results generally lower water content and lower saturation at a given matric suction, and a consistent but relatively small influence on the shrinkage limit. 4. In the gold tailings, while the influence of constant 1-D loading up to 150 kPa. did not substantially change the shape of the SWCC. Consolidation curves at a constant level of suction, did show a significant decrease of void ratio at lower levels of loading, compared to the consolidation curve with no matric suction applied. Acknowledgements I would like to fully acknowledge the following: • First and foremost my supervisor Professor Paul Simms, for his constant help, professional advice, his direction during my thesis and providing his comments and suggestions. Professor Paul Simms’s friendship made a great difference in my entire program. • My family, my wife and my son, for their support, help and encouragement during my program. • The other people such as Stan Conley and Marie Tudoret who contributed in various ways to this research.

Effect of initial water content and stress history on water-retention behaviour of mine tailings