Laboratory tests on vacuum preloading and electro-osmotic consolidation of calcareous soft soil

The calcareous soft soil mainly with fine particle content is distributed in the South China Sea and countries along the the Belt and Road. How to drain and consolidate is a subject worthy of study. Taking the remolded calcareous soft soil as the research object, the vacuum preloading and electro-osmotic consolidation tests are carried out with electro-kinetic geosynthetic (EKG) electrode. The apparent phenomena of the tests, the relationship between drainage and water content of soil, the relationship between current and ions during the electro-osmotic consolidation tests and the one-dimensional compression characteristics of soil samples after vacuum preloading are obtained. The applicability of the two reinforcement methods in drainage consolidation of the calcareous soft soil is discussed. The results show that compared with the electro-osmotic consolidation, the vacuum preloading consolidation is a drainage consolidation method with high efficiency, uniform treatment effect and significantly improved bearing capacity of the calcareous soft soil after treatment.