An intermittent sedimentation test was performed for vanadium-titanium magnetite tailings to obtain settling curves of flocculated tailings, and then the solid flux in sedimentation by flocculation was calculated by Coe-Clevenger equation and material balance calculation. An innovative Φ38 m heavy-duty and efficient thickener is designed to have a unit area processing capacity of 1 000 kg/(m²·h). The industrial application of this thickener in dewatering of vanadium-titanium magnetic tailings show that with dry ore processing capacity of 1 100 t/h and the feed concentration of 20%－25%, its underflow has concentration of 45% and the overflow has solid content less than 200 mg/L. It is concluded that such thickener can solve the technical problems in the production faced by enterprises, and also bring enterprises enhanced economic and environmental benefits.

thickening  /  sedimentation  /  thickener  /  tailings  /  vanadium-titanium magnetite tailings  /  flocculation sedimentation curve