An analytical solution for the nonlinear large strain consolidation of soils treated by electro-osmosis combined with vacuum and surcharge preloading

With the developments of the geotextiles industry, some electro-kinetic geosynthetics are used for the indoor tests of treating soils with electro-osmosis. Electro-osmotic treatment of soft soils has promising applications as synthetic electrodes are environmentally benign and have good hydraulic conductivity. However, the consolidation theory for soils treated by electro-osmosis combined with vacuum and surcharge preloading in which electrodes are installed in a hexagonal array has been rarely reported in the existing literature. Therefore, a consolidation model for such technologies is established in this study and the corresponding analytical solution is obtained. Then, the correctness of the proposed model is verified by comparing the results calculated by it with those calculated by the existing solutions and measured data. Finally, extensive calculations are performed to investigate the consolidation behaviors of soils under such condition, and the results show that the DC power supply is suggested to be cut off in the late stage of consolidation to reduce the cost; the energy consumption per unit volume of water discharged increases as the effective voltage increases; high benefits can be obtained by using the electro-osmosis for the treatment of soils when the thickness of soils is thin or the influential zone of each cathode is large.