One of the most fundamentally challenging issues facing the geotechnical community today is the containment, long-term storage and volume reduction of oil sand fine tailings. One of the fine tailings disposal techniques that appears to exhibit the most promise is the " Prevention of Segregation of Coarse and Fine Materials " often called non-segregating tailings (NST).

Accurate NST consolidation prediction models can only be created once a fundamental understanding of NST consolidation has been developed. With the help of these models, assessment of the applicability and long-term behaviour of NST can be better understood and predicted.

In this thesis, NST compressibility, permeability and coefficient of consolidation prediction models were developed utilizing fundamental soil mechanics principles. Using the predicted results from these models, modelling of the self-weight consolidation behaviour of NST was conducted using a Finite Difference (FD) method of analysis. To assess the accuracy of the proposed models and FD method, the predicted results were compared to laboratory measured results from a large scale (10 m high) standpipe test apparatus over a 3 year period.

The predicted results, utilizing the proposed models and FD method, were relatively close to the measured results from the standpipe. Therefore, it was concluded that the proposed NST consolidation prediction models and FD method allows one to predict the consolidation behaviour of NST.