The hydraulic transport of suspensions is frequently encountered in industry. A typical example is mine tailings which are transported from the dewatering plant to the tailings disposal area through an open channel. In recent years, because of water shortages andenvironmental and economic issues, tailings system facilities are changing, and thickening of mineral processing plant tailings slurry to achieve a high solids content at discharge is becoming common. As a consequence, with increasing concentration, tailings material becomes more viscous and non-Newtonian in nature, and its flow behavior becomes complex and more difficult to predict.

This paper presents the experimental observations and the models which have been analytically developed to predict the flow of such material through an open channel in the transitional and turbulent regimes. The experimental datasets used are the measurement obtained from the flow of typical mining tailings and kaolin clay suspensions of varying concentration through a 100-mm wide and 4.8-meter long rectangular channel. Furthermore, the Haldenwang and Slatter (2003) and Burger et al. (2014) published data have also been used.