Field Test on Consolidation of Hydraulically Filled Sludge via Vertical Gradient Electro-osmotic Dewatering

• Published in: International journal of geosynthetics and ground engineering Vol. 8; no. 5
• Main Author: Zhuang, Yan-feng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.10.2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Bearing capacity; Building Materials; Case Study; Consolidation; Dry density; Electroosmosis; Energy consumption; Engineering; Environmental Science and Engineering; Field tests; Foundations; Geoengineering; Hydraulics; Moisture content; Power sources; Shear strength; Soft ground; Utilization of Recycled Waste Materials in Ground Engineering Applications; Water flow; EKG; Electro-osmosis; Consolidation; Vertical gradient electro-osmosis
• ISSN: 2199-9260; 2199-9279
• DOI: 10.1007/s40891-022-00406-x

An E-tube system to provide vertical gradient electro-osmosis and better vacuum condition in deep soft ground is presented. Consolidation effect was improved in two ways: upward water flow generated by vertical gradient electro-osmosis and improvement of vacuum condition by gathering water in E-tube. Field test was carried out to verify the proposed method. Test result shows that after consolidation, water content decreased from 80 ~ 95% to 44 ~ 59% and dry density increased from 0.76 ~ 0.85 g/cm 3 to 0.95 ~ 1.23 g/cm 3 ; shear strength increased from 1 ~ 2 kPa to 16 kPa and bearing capacity increased from 10 ~ 20 kPa to about 70 kPa. Energy consumption in this field test was 30.5 kW·h/m 3 . This indicates that SCR is not an energy efficient way to build electro-osmosis DC power source. High frequency switch-mode DC power source with PFC might be a better choice.