Capturing Invaluable Data Intelligence

Okane assisted in planning a large-scale field trial to evaluate various methods for treating, transporting, and depositing fine fluid tailings supporting a lake extension project. Okane installed monitoring instrumentation and offered data management and interpretation services.

The field trial consisted of five deposits, including a centrifuged cake culvert, and one controlled boundary condition deposit known as the Environmental Wedge Cell. The original objective of the field trial was to assess deposit behaviour concerning settlement, densification, and strengthening over a two-year period. Although monitoring for the four deposits and the Environmental Wedge Cell ceased in 2012, monitoring of the cake culvert deposit has continued. Sand caps were placed on the deposit in 2012 and 2013 to investigate the effects of increased surcharge loading.

The instrumentation installed in the deposits allowed for the measurement of volumetric water content, soil matric potential, temperature, positive pore-water pressure, salinity, and total pressure. Monitoring of the cake culvert continues to provide valuable, ongoing data related to consolidation and strength profiles in a deep centrifuge-derived cake deposit following loading.