The ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) method has been widely used as a nondestructive testing (NDT) in Civil Engineering to evaluate the quality of concrete, soils, and other materials. However, this method has never been used to evaluate the properties of the oil sands tailings. The oil sands tailings have slow consolidation, low density and stiffness, which often lead to the continuous accumulation of the FFT; leading to reclamation problem due to lack of strength to support the FFT . The main objective of this thesis is to assess whether the UPV method can be used as an on-site measurement application in the oil sand tailings in order to detect changes and trends in tailings' properties such as strength, density and structuration as a function of time. The ultrasonic equipment is calibrated, verified, and then used to capture P-waves and S-waves when the waves interact with the column filled with flocculated fluid fine tailings (fFFT). To increase the reliability of the UPV test, special "holders" were designed and fabricated to improve the stabilization of the piezoelectrical transducers. Inferred wave velocities and changes in wave attenuation determined from the p-wave data showed correlations with the expected changes in density in the column; data using s-wave or p-wave-s-wave combinations did not show useful trends.
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