Performance of Conductive Plastic Vertical Drainage Board Under Vacuum Preloading Combined with Electro-osmotic Consolidation

Abstract

The electro-osmosis consolidation method is efficient to drain water out of soft clay subgrade, but the corrosion of traditional metal electrode restricted its application. With the innovation of the composite conductive material, the conductive plastic was made into prefabricated electric vertical drainage (e-PVD) board to avoid electrode corrosion. The drainage ability from the top and bottom of the e-PVD board was analyzed. Furthermore, the performance of the e-PVD board among the vacuum preloading method (V-P), the vacuum preloading combined with electro-osmosis method (V-E) and the cathode straight drainage method (C-S) was contrasted. The results showed that the top drainage method (T-D) was preceding the bottom drainage method (B-D) in several aspects with the usage of e-PVD board. The discharge of soil treatment using V-E method was the largest, and the potential was the most stable, the shear strength and the settlement were both the largest. Moreover, the discharge of the C-S method was larger than V-E method in the initial eight hours. At a certain time, the C-S method can improve the mutual inhibition of the vacuum preloading and electro-osmosis at the anode in the traditional V-E method. The combination of the C-S method and V-E method can further increase the total discharge.