An important challenge associated with surface disposal of paste tailings is to predict the evolution of the stack geometry, as this will facilitate the management of the tailings storage facility.;This research investigates the flow and depositional behaviour of gold paste tailings at a laboratory scale. To this end, several flow tests were recorded using a high-speed camera and the visualizations of the flows were compared with steady-state and transient solutions based on lubrication theory. The yield stress and viscosity of the tailings were obtained from flow curves fitted by the Bingham model.;The predicted flow profiles showed good agreement with the experimental data. The overall angle of the deposit was found to be a function of the scale of the flow, which may explain the observed discrepancy between former laboratory studies and field results. Finally, the results revealed that the theory applied in this study has potential for field scale applications.
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