Nicholas Beier
Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Alberta
Canada
Biography
2015 to present, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta.
Research Interest
Dr. Beier’s research interests encompass various aspects of tailings and mine waste management for surface mining operations, such as the oil sands in northern Alberta, in addition to base and precious metals. Dr. Beier’s research focuses on development and evaluation of new tailings dewatering and management strategies through simulation and subsequent physical testing in the laboratory and field. This research entails further development of a novel analytical tool, TMSim (tailings management simulation), which can be used to evaluate hypothetical or specific operating strategies and design alternatives that will support technology assessment, scenario-analysis and mine planning. Through the Oil Sands Tailings Research Facility, he leads research to investigate the depositional and long-term geotechnical behavior of filtered whole tailings, chemically amended and/or freeze-thaw dewatered fine tailings. Other research includes cold regions engineering and its application to mining in northern climates and permafrost regions including control of acid mine drainage from waste rock piles and behavior of frozen fine grained tailings deposits
Publications
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Beier, N., Sego, D., Donahue, R., and Biggar, K. (2007). Laboratory investigation on freeze separation of saline mine waste water. Journal of Cold Regions Science and Technology. 48(2007) 239-247.
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Beier, N. and Sego, D. (2009). Cyclic freeze-thaw to enhance the stability of coal tailings. Cold Regions Science and Technology. 55(2009) 278-285.
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Beier, N.A., Wilson, G.W., Dunmola, A., and Sego, D.C. (2013). Impact of flocculation-based dewatering on the shear strength of oil sands fine tailings. Canadian Geotechnical Journal 50(9): 1001-1007.
