Atterberg limits and strength relationships of oil sands tailings

Reclamation of tailings facilities at oil sands mines in northern Alberta presents a significant engineering challenge, in part due to their high clay mineral content and associated geotechnical behaviour. As a result, existing methods for describing natural clay behaviour, including Atterberg limits and relationships between remoulded undrained shear strength and liquidity index, have been used to characterize oil sands tailings. A laboratory research program was undertaken to evaluate the use of these methods for oil sands tailings and develop a material-specific correlation between remoulded undrained shear strength and liquidity index.

This dataset is a supplement to the associated journal article that presents the results of this research program. It includes a review of existing published data and experimental results to support the development of a mathematical relationship between remoulded undrained shear strength and liquidity index. Data is presented according to the figure numbers in the associated article. Refer to the associated article for variable definitions and a discussion of results.